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Are You Going to Eat That? Food Waste & Climate, Explained
1.3 billion tonnes of food, or about a third of our total supply chain, is lost between the field and the customer every year. It's important for us to live in a world where the food that lands on our plate arrives safely and affordably - and we’ve found just the team to make this dream a reality.
— Written by Shayna Berglas
Climate Change & Food Systems
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
Agriculture and the food system rely on predictability. The changing climate eliminates that predictability and this creates a whole lot of stress on the entire system.
In the U.S. alone, nearly a third of all food produced is wasted. This accounts for 4.4 gigatons of carbon dioxide emissions every year, or about 8.8% of total anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.
A major driver of this waste is toxins, pathogens, and pests that start in the field. Contaminants can lead to a range of issues that cause food safety and food waste challenges. They also lead to a range of human health issues caused by contaminants like salmonella, E. coli, and Listeria, where over 600 million cases are recorded worldwide every year.
But this story has a real shot at a happy ending. We’ve found a startup that uses air and electricity to boost yields, improve food safety and reduce food waste.
Clean Crop: The Tech in Action
Clean Crop uses cold plasma technology to remove different contaminants like bacteria, mold, fungus, and viruses from the surface of different foods and seeds, reducing risk and waste from the farmer all the way up to the consumer.
The startup uses this novel technology to disrupt the growth of pathogens and break down their DNA, inactivating them in the process. This is done using an energetic field to create tailored gas blends that have the unique ability of removing contaminants from food surfaces (without leaving any residue behind) and enhancing seed performance. These gases are used to treat a wide range of products like seeds, nuts, cheese, fruits & vegetables, and meats & seafood. The result is boosted yields, increased food safety from pathogen-borne illnesses, and increased shelf-life for the treated products.
Their process will offset as much as a gigaton of CO2 emissions by 2050. “But, Shayna,” you may wonder, “what on earth is a gigaton?” Central Park is 4 kilometers long and 0.8 kilometers wide. A gigaton of ice placed here would extend 341 meters (1,119 feet) high. No joke. CO2 in its gaseous state takes on a different form and therefore that metric looks a bit different. But one thing is certain… a gigaton is a heck of an impact.
Watch the video here.
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