Food Waste

In Switzer­land, around every third food item pro­duced for con­sump­tion ends up in the garbage. This cor­re­sponds to ap­prox­i­mate­ly 330 kg/person or 2,800 tonnes per year in Switzer­land. Food waste is not only cre­at­ed in our homes but on all lev­els when it comes to food production.
For in­stance, when the farmer’s food doesn’t meet some stan­dard re­quire­ments for trans­porta­tion or sale or de­layed de­liv­ery, it goes to waste. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, restau­rants, take-aways, fast-food chains, can­teens, and oth­ers pro­duce food waste dai­ly be­cause it got cold or the guests haven’t fin­ished their dishes.

Packaging and Circular Economy

A lot of pack­ag­ing ma­te­r­i­al is used for trans­porta­tion and in stores when it comes to the sale of food, which is not sus­tain­able and pol­lutes the cli­mate. Not only the plas­tic waste in the sea or the forests are prob­lem­at­ic, but also any single-use pack­ag­ing such as Sty­ro­foam, card­board cups, alu­minum cans, glass bot­tles, or bags of chips that are dis­posed in a nor­mal way. The en­vi­ron­ment gets harmed on the one hand al­ready dur­ing the pro­duc­tion phase (re­sources, pro­cess­ing, trans­porta­tion, etc.). On the oth­er hand, when the food is dis­posed of (in­cin­er­a­tion, land­fill, etc.). Un­for­tu­nate­ly, there are not yet that many ap­proach­es and so­lu­tions to this glob­al problem.

Digital Transformation in Food

Dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion is un­stop­pable and a top­ic in al­most every area. The food in­dus­try is also dig­i­tiz­ing agri­cul­ture and the sup­ply chain. For ex­am­ple, farm­ers in the USA are al­ready us­ing au­tonomous trac­tors to fer­tilise their large fields. Drones are used to seed fields and pick ripe fruits and veg­eta­bles. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, there are dif­fer­ent ap­proach­es to dig­i­ti­za­tion in var­i­ous sup­ply chain phases.
Do you have an idea how dig­i­ti­za­tion in the field or the sup­ply chain can be developed?Sign up for the NEO Cli­mate In­no­va­tion Chal­lenge to help change these vast and var­i­ous chal­lenges that need to be tack­led to­geth­er. We are look­ing for peo­ple who would like to deal with these top­ics in­ten­sive­ly dur­ing the NEO Cli­mate In­no­va­tion Chal­lenge, and maybe you or your team will find a sus­tain­able so­lu­tion that will change the world!

The Program

Our program includes

More details will be announced soon!

Who can participate?

Every­one who would like to con­tribute to solve the cur­rent sus­tain­abil­i­ty prob­lem in the food in­dus­try. It does­n’t mat­ter if you are a stu­dent, young pro­fes­sion­al, or al­ready re­tired! We tru­ly be­lieve that the more di­verse the team is the bet­ter the so­lu­tions will be!