Yume and SUEZ partner to tackle commercial food waste

SUEZ and Yume have announced a partnership in the fight against commercial food waste, which sees approximately 4.1 million tonnes of surplus food wasted each year. The federal government’s Food Waste Baseline report revealed that 7.3 million tonnes of food goes to waste every year in Australia, with approximately 55% of the food wasted by Australians associated with the primary production, manufacturing and wholesale sectors.

Yume, an online marketplace for surplus food, strives to provide solutions for the top two stages of the food waste hierarchy: avoiding and re-using. SUEZ is focused on recovering, recycling and treating as much waste as possible; partnering with Yume aligns with the company’s commitment to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, by promoting responsible production and consumption. In order to prevent the highest amount of food from going to waste, Yume identified the problem early, as soon as the surplus was found, so it could retain value and be used for human consumption. By partnering with Yume, SUEZ strives to build its existing local infrastructure and drive innovation across the industry.

Image credit: Yume

“SUEZ is a bold organisation who is not scared of calling things as they are. They walk the talk and they agree that it takes a whole-of-industry and government approach in order to change our waste economy into a circular economy. There is also a great culture fit that is not always easy to achieve,” said Katy Barfield, CEO and Founder of Yume.

Yume has sold over 1.35 million kilograms of quality surplus food, returning approximately $5 million to Australian farmers and manufacturers. The Yume platform acts as a one-step solution to manage all surplus including bulk ingredients, by-products and finished packaged goods that may have labelling errors, are a result of overproduction, are close to best-before or are deleted lines.

“We need to start taking responsibility for all the waste we produce, and we can achieve this by joining forces to speed up the development of more advanced approaches to recycling in Australia. SUEZ is committed to collaboration across industry. This partnership will leverage off our national presence and extensive network of customers to connect food suppliers with food buyers — achieving better outcomes for quality surplus products that are at risk of going to waste, in order to create sustainable value for our customers,” said Mark Venhoek, CEO of SUEZ Australia and New Zealand.

Yume and SUEZ are calling on business leaders to take on the fight against commercial food waste and its associated environmental, economic and social impacts.