It’s time to rethink food waste
The Facts
Waste along the supply chain
Both food waste and food loss are created at every link in the distribution system. From farm to distributor to retailer to consumer, every time another layer is added, it adds cost, complexity, and loss. Reducing food waste and food loss ultimately reduces the stressors on the current agricultural and waste management system.*
Imagine: each time a layer is added from farm to table, another day is added too. We now experience improper handling, incorrect storage, drops, spills, damage, pests, and increasing financial and carbon impacts. Long transportation results in 15-20% of product damage before it has a chance to reach consumers.* This not only affects the farmer, but now the middle handlers take increasingly large markups on each product due to the amount of damaged or unsellable crop they inevitably receive.*
ORCA's Mission For Less
Food waste is one of the largest causes of anthropogenic climate change, with traditional waste disposal wreaking havoc on an already broken system. The ORCA technology was designed with one goal in mind: to take every garbage truck off the road. This vision sounds simple enough, but the message behind it is so much deeper. By removing garbage trucks from organic waste management, we are removing the financial, operational, and environmental complexity of waste management. We are truly working toward lessening our impact. That is where Less Food Waste stems from. Let’s talk about less.
ORCA strives to create an intuitive, organic waste management system that streamlines data collection, sustainable reporting, resource extraction, and responsible disposal into one piece of kitchen equipment.
In 2015, the EPA created the Food Recovery Hierarchy. This inverted pyramid sets priorities for reducing food waste and saving natural resources.* The highest priority, according to the pyramid, is to reduce waste at the source while leaving landfilling of food waste as the least favorable and last resort option.*
The ORCA Technology aims to hit multiple levels on the Food Recovery Hierarchy in order to comply with the overarching message of reducing food waste. We believe if you can’t feed people, animals, or the planet, you should feed the ORCA.
How ORCA Ties In:
Through ORCA’s intuitive diversion reporting software, we encourage the data collection and analysis of current and past food waste trends. Understanding where food waste is generated (which days of the week, certain menu items, or in particular event spaces) allows clients to reduce at the source. Making smarter purchasing decisions, understanding customers’ preferences, and therefore wasting less.
United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
In 2015, during the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the United Nations Member States provided a blueprint for “peace and prosperity for people and planet, now and into the future.” (United Nations, 2022) At the core of this message are the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that act as a call to action for all countries to work toward ending poverty, alongside improving health and education, reducing inequality, and spurring economic growth while fighting climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forest ecosystems.*
ORCA strives to support all efforts from our global partners, working in collaboration for these unified goals.
ORCA Digesters currently aligns its business practices and efforts with 9 goals and 11 goal targets, which include 2.C, 3.9, 7.A, 8.2, 8.8, 9.4, 11.6, 14.1, 15.5, 17.7, and 17.16.