Bread and bakery sector food waste action plan
Prepared by Rawtec for Stop Food Waste Australia, in partnership with the NSW Environment Protection Authority. Codesigned with the sector using WRAP UK’s Whole Chain Efficiency Toolkit.
Summary published
Australia’s bread and bakery chain wastes 319,400 tonnes of food a year. That is the weight of 456 million loaves.
The more useful number is the one underneath it. The sector generates 575,000 tonnes of potential waste and already prevents 255,700 of it, mostly by sending material to animal feed. So 44% is being caught before it becomes waste.
Rawtec built the food waste account stage by stage, from the paddock to the kitchen bin, so the sector could see where the remaining volume actually sits.
Wasted each year across the chain
Of potential waste already prevented
Wasted in households, the biggest single stage
Of actual waste still goes to landfill
Where the waste sits
Households waste more than the entire supply chain
Households generate 220,000 tonnes of potential waste and prevent only 12% of it, leaving 194,300 tonnes. Milling, by contrast, generates 135,000 tonnes of potential waste and prevents 133,700 of it, leaving 1,400. The industrial end of this chain is already very efficient.
Retail's problem has a name: sale and return
Retail generates 104,000 tonnes of potential waste and prevents 74,500. Outside South Australia, 12 to 20% of bread and bakery items are returned to the supplier. In South Australia, where the practice is restricted, it is 2 to 6% of unsold proprietary bread. Same product, same shoppers, very different number.
The rest of the chain
Primary production 7,000 tonnes, silo storage 5,000, bakery manufacturing 28,300 of a potential 50,000, and food service 54,000 with nothing currently prevented.
Where the prevented material goes
Animal feed takes 40% of all potential waste, or 228,100 tonnes. Upcycling and repurposing take 3%, and donation to charities 2%. Of what remains as actual waste, 51% goes to landfill and only 5% is composted or spread on land.
Why it happens, stage by stage
Manufacturing: machine failure, human error, overproduction. Retail: unsold bread driven by sale and return. Food service: plate waste and oversized portions. Households: wanting fresh bread, storing it badly, and shopping often.
What worked when businesses tried
A collapsible shelf at Bakers Delight saves an estimated five tonnes of bread a year, worth about $5,000. Phillippa’s Bakery cut quarterly waste costs from $60,000 to $18,000. The Hilton Sydney saved almost $860,000 in 2018-19.
The ten actions
A better practice guide and toolkit aimed at manufacturing, micro-credentials for staff training, and a platform for sharing technology and equipment.
Investigate legislation to prevent sale and return, or move the sector to a partnership approach where waste ownership is shared rather than pushed back up the chain.
Pilot point-of-sale data analysis to optimise how full the shelf needs to be, and review the nutritional requirements that drive over-ordering in institutions.
Expand production of smaller loaves, and add visual cues on packaging telling people they can freeze it.
Mandate separate organics collections, and amplify the consumer behaviour change campaigns already running.
The food waste account was built from the National Food Waste Strategy Feasibility Study and refined with sector insights rather than a comprehensive audit, and no financial analysis of the individual initiatives was completed within the project scope. Primary production volumes depend heavily on seasonal conditions. Biscuits and meat pies are out of scope.
Related reports
The other sector action plans.
The full report includes the stage-by-stage food waste account and the detail behind each of the ten actions.
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