Capgemini & CGF Target Food Waste With Value Chain Strategy

In addressing the overwhelming issue of 1.3 billion tonnes of edible food waste each year, Capgemini encourages businesses to view this challenge as an opportunity for growth and enhanced efficiency, while also supporting sustainability.

The annual food loss amounts to a staggering US$940bn loss globally and contributes 3.3 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases, as noted by The Consumer Goods Forum (CGF).

Capgemini's target is transforming this waste into value for brands and retailers, strategising to extract worth from what would otherwise be discarded.

Sharon Bligh, Director for Health & Sustainability at The Consumer Goods Forum, says: “We’re seeing a shift in mindset, waste is no longer just a cost to minimise, but a resource to optimise. 

“Our Coalition is moving from simply reducing avoidable food waste to designing waste out of the system entirely, enabling value creation at every stage.”

Understanding the consumer goods forum

The Consumer Goods Forum is dedicated to improving lives through better business operations by uniting consumer goods manufacturers and retailers to enhance efficiency and instigate positive change industry-wide.

Central to the organisation's goals is minimising food waste, a crucial element for sustainability. Established in 2009, the forum brings together twenty leading brands and retailers, including Tesco, Coca-Cola and Nestlé, in its Food Waste Coalition.

Apart from tackling food waste, CGF invests in several sustainability and humanitarian projects:

• Eradicating forced labour while upholding workers’ rights
• Promoting human rights in alignment with the United Nations' guiding principles
• People Positive Palm Project is pushing collaboration between consumer goods firms and palm oil suppliers to eliminate forced labour

Wai-Chan Chan, Managing Director of The Consumer Goods Forum, said in a statement: “Weathering short-term challenges cannot distract leaders from delivering long-term value to their companies and to people and the planet. 

“As the group of CEOs set out in this report, success depends not only on how leaders work in their companies but also how they work with others across the industry.

“No organisation can overcome the many challenges they face today alone. 

“Systemic solutions can only be created through collective action and this ethos is core to how the CGF operates.”

The food waste coalition of action

This project reimagines food waste as an actionable challenge, not an inevitable supply chain byproduct.

Capgemini and CGF are identifying key issues within supply chains and social norms, discovering vital value creators such as enhancing profitability through material optimisation, avoiding costs related to overstock and sustaining new revenue streams.

• Meeting environmental regulations and accessing sustainable initiative funds
• Enhancing regenerative agriculture and strengthening supplier ties

While still in its early operations, the organisation outlines preliminary solutions advising businesses to incorporate food waste in business improvement and sustainability strategies.

Emphasising data-driven sustainability, it encourages using insights to predict new technologies and capabilities.

Furthermore, advanced businesses can further their profitability by repurposing waste, such as upcycling old goods or converting animal waste into animal feed.

After achieving substantial waste reduction, focus must then shift to understanding the causes of waste within the nexus of manufacturers and retailers.

Challenges facing the initiative

The main barriers identified by CGF impacting progress are:

• Cultural excess – businesses often overproduce to meet consumer demands for perfection, positioning waste as an unavoidable business cost
• Narrow focus – companies tend to focus on directly controllable areas rather than value chain transformation, so a cross-value chain approach is needed
• Fragmented value chains – lacking shared goals among retailers, suppliers and manufacturers leads to structural issues like transparency and logistic solutions remaining unresolved

Kees Jacobs, VP, Consumer Goods and Retail, Capgemini, says: “Through our work with the Consumer Good Forum and the Food Waste Coalition for Action, we’re pinpointing the business processes that drive loss and waste across the value chain.

“We are laying the groundwork for a transformation that is not limited to the areas under the control of manufacturers and retailers, but truly systemic.”