How Duda Farm Fresh Foods Prioritizes Reducing Waste

 Approximately 40% of the food produced in the United States is lost or wasted, despite the fact that tens of millions of people in this country still experience food insecurity. Additionally, that statistic excludes food lost on farms. Farm losses that are widespread get considerably less attention than losses from post-consumer waste, food delivery, or retail settings.

 

The problem extends beyond the food that is still on the field. According to ReFED, a national nonprofit devoted to preventing food loss and waste, around 21% of water, 18% of cropland, and 19% of fertiliser are used in the United States to grow food that no one consumes.

Need to Boost Profits

The produce business can and must innovate its way out of the food-loss problem, according to Brad Stinson, a fifth-generation farmer and QA/QC Field Supervisor at Duda Farm Fresh Foods Inc. (Yuma, AZ). For the benefit of populations with food insecurity, the health of the environment, and, quite frankly, his bottom line.

 

Stinson says, "The status quo is unsustainable." "No new land is being created. Additionally, the rising price of available farmland is pressuring many owners to sell to developers.

 

Meanwhile, he claims that producers are constrained by both the high cost of technology and the rising expense of labour.

 

According to Stinson, "[It's] not advanced enough yet to completely make up for the human aspect."

Additionally, vital water resources are becoming more and more dependent on life support, such as the Colorado River watershed, which is utilised to irrigate farmland near Yuma, Arizona. According to Stinson, this is a result of both climate change and years of increasing allocation due to increased urban expansion.

 

According to Stinson, geopolitics also affects growth. For instance, the news has largely concentrated on the grain and energy shortage brought on by the invasion of Ukraine. However, as Stinson points out, a significant portion of the chemicals used to make everything from fertiliser to herbicides, fungicides, and insecticides come from Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe.

 

Due to the produce industry's consequently slim profit margins, Stinson finds the prospect of recovering even a small portion of the value from food loss to be particularly alluring.

How Can Waste Be Reduced?

What measures can producers take to reduce food loss, then?

 

Harvest season. Scheduling more and later harvests is a clear solution. After all, doing so guarantees that less food will spoil in the field.

 

But because of those narrow profit margins, Stinson also needs to carefully weigh the advantages and disadvantages of returning to the industry. Will the profits cover the costs of the harvesting equipment, labour, and other expenses?

 

evaluation of crop quality. You can't manage what you can't measure, as the phrase goes. Better data collecting is Stinson's first step toward resolving his problem with food loss and boosting his profit margins.

How much of Stinson's and his growers' unsold fruit is marketable, edible, or inedible needs to be quickly and easily determined. All of which differs greatly from one crop type to the next and from one region to another.

Size and shape requirements are frequently part of quality standards, and they can either be strictly enforced or slightly flexible, depending on the supply at any particular time. Image provided by Duda Farm Fresh Foods

 

They'll be in a better position to handle excess product through enhanced farm management methods the earlier in the season they can do so.

 

Stinson claims that yield and quality are the key factors in everything. In a perfect world, we would be able to foretell a crop's yield and growth patterns when the plants are still quite young. Of course, doing it with the naked eye is more difficult the smaller they are.

Use high-quality tools. Thankfully, modern technologies have made this less of an issue. Stinson's operation now collaborates with a business that uses aerial drones to scout their farms. The accuracy of the measurements made by the drones ranges from 90% to 95%.

 

They are able to pivot early on if necessary because to those discoveries and the data they gathered through on-the-ground research.

 

Stinson explains, "If we discover that field X isn't going to meet our quality criteria, then perhaps we pump the brakes on that field, letting it size up over the course of the following week. We'll harvest field Y in the meanwhile.

 

Tracking Losses Creates Opportunity

The ability to quickly alter developing strategies is a huge benefit. The advantages of reliable data collection, however, don't stop there.

Stinson is better able to pinpoint potential sales channels for surplus or imperfect produce by being aware of the size and cost of on-farm losses. He recently joined forces with a business that juices its "edible but not marketable" secondary vegetables before selling it as beverages to its own clientele.

 

Additionally, more precise data enables Stinson's operations to extrapolate farther along the supply chain.

 

"We may start making backward adjustments to cut costs elsewhere. No matter if those losses occur during the packing, processing, or storage stages," he asserts.

They can evaluate historical averages from field to field and crop to crop by adding all this to their database and making the necessary adjustments.

 

The underlying issue, according to Stinson, is how many plants we can sustain from the moment they are planted until they are harvested.

 

Although it may seem like a straightforward idea, every farmer worth their salt knows that reality is anything but.

 

How Duda Farm Fresh Foods Prioritizes Reducing Waste

Stinson yet displays sincere optimism for the farming sector when asked about his views on the industry's future.

 

He claims that numerous developments are being made to address sustainability and improved efficiency. And that really illustrates the creativity and intuition for which the agricultural industry has long been known.

#food loss

#kitchen waste

#used cooking oil

#sink garbage disposal

#food waste management