The food waste hierarchy
The food waste hierarchy.
Black soldier flies give us the opportunity to re-use food, rather than by disposal or recovery.
This is the food waste hierarchy.
I am amazed by the many different pathways that your food takes when you chuck it in the bin. Nearly 10% of UK food waste ends up in landfill, which I think would pleasantly surprise a lot of people. That is because of all the other options available to us. Let me talk you through the hierarchy, starting with the least desirable option.
🗑 Disposal: A last resort only utilised when all other options are unavailable. This is bad because when the food decomposes in the open air, it releases harmful methane into the environment contributing to global warming.
⛽️ Recovery: Convert the organic matter to energy (biogas) most commonly via anaerobic digestion. An additional by product of this process is the digestate, which can be used as a fertiliser.
🌱 Nutrient recovery: Commonly through composting. This is where some nutrients are recovered, but it can be a long and drawn out process with many nutrients lost.
♻️ Recylce: Extracting nutrients to be recycled with a high added value. It's important here to find other uses for the nutrients that aren't recycled and often this is used in combination with the recovery stage.
🔀 Re-use as animal feed: Insects 🪰 are the answer to this part of the hierarchy. They upcycle food waste into a high quality protein for livestock, whilst also producing a fertiliser in the process (the nutrient recovery stage 🌱).
🥙 Re-use for human consumption: If you can bypass animal feed and go straight for human consumption, the do it. Insects can play a part here, more commonly with crickets or mealworm. Or we can simply re-purpose via 'wonky veg'.
⛔️ Prevention: the most important of them all. This could be through innovative companies such as Too Good To Go, or better supply chain practices. Or simply changing consumer habits.
The food chain is full of complexity, but the infrastructure we are capable of building gives me hope that we can create a national, maybe even international, circular economy. Where food waste doesn't exist and that we give every bit of organic matter value.
Fly2Feed currently plays a role in number 3 on the food hierarchy. This gives more access to food waste, so insects can convert it into a sustainable and nutritious livestock feed.
