Less food waste from Fazer’s production
The International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste is celebrated on Wednesday, 29 September. The day is dedicated by the United Nations to raising awareness of the impact of food loss and waste on the environment. One of Fazer’s four sustainability Core goals is 50 per cent less food waste by 2030. In 2020, Fazer successfully reduced production waste by as much as 8 per cent from the previous year.
Every year, a third of all food produced for human consumption globally is lost or wasted. Reducing food waste is one of the key ways of reducing the adverse environmental impacts of food production. Halving food waste by 2030 is one of Fazer’s four sustainability Core goals.
“In 2020, we managed to reduce food waste by eight per cent compared to the previous year. We strive to minimise wastage in many different ways, for example, by developing our production processes, reusing raw materials and making food donations. Our cafés have successfully reduced waste by selling food products to consumers via the ResQ application,” says Sari Sarin, Head of Sustainability at Fazer Group.
How Fazer reduces waste from production
Bread comprises the largest product category of food waste at both the retail and household level in Finland. Surplus dough left over from shaping the loaves is the largest source of food waste in bakery production. This year, Fazer’s bakery in Vantaa invested in a recycling machine for discarded dough, which recycles the surplus dough from shaping the loaves back into the production process. Up until now, the surplus dough had been passed on to be used as raw material for bioethanol. The new recycling machine for discarded dough reduces food waste by more than 300,000 kilograms per year. In total, Fazer Bakery has reduced production waste by half compared to the 2017 level. Further measures are already in the pipeline. Efforts to develop and automate baking processes are ongoing, and even closer cooperation with retailers enables bread orders to be predicted more precisely.
In confectionery production, waste is typically generated at the start and end of the manufacturing batch, for example, resulting in chocolate tablets where the size or the amount of flavouring does not meet the standard. Fazer has as long history of using recovered production waste from the chocolate factory in different products, such as Pätkis and Da Capo. Da Capo was created in 1916 with recycling in mind: it was a way to use Liqueur Fills that had been deemed defective by quality control. One recent example of reducing food waste is the Makea Moka candy bag, which has helped to significantly reduce production waste from the Lappeenranta confectionery factory. Recycling is also embedded into the production of the Vihreä Kuula (Green Jelly) marmalades, a seasonal product sold at the end of the year. This means that marmalade balls stuck to each other after moulding, for example, are returned to the marmalade mixture and recast.
Furthermore, the world’s first fully backwards integrated xylitol factory is already under construction next to Fazer’s oat mill in Lahti, which will provide oat hulls as raw material for the new plant. The manufacturing process is unique, since this will be the first time the raw material is used to commercially manufacture xylitol. Fazer’s innovation allows the most valuable parts of the oat hulls to be recovered. The rest will be used as fuel at the biopower plant to be constructed next door, which will supply district heating and industrial steam for all of Fazer’s sites in Lahti.
Food donations
We strive to prevent overproduction in our production facilities and cafés through good planning. In spite of our best efforts, perfectly edible food items and bakery and confectionery products are still left over. We currently collaborate with food aid charities in Finland, Sweden, Russia, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. Donating food to these charities helps us to ensure that the food goes toward its intended purpose and to reduce unnecessary food loss. In Finland, we make donations through our regular food aid partners, including Ruokapankki in Tampere, Helsinki Missio and Hurstin Apu in Helsinki, the surplus food terminal in Vantaa, and Operaatio Ruokakassi in Turku.
Inspiring creative ways of reusing food waste at Fazer Experience
The Fazer Experience Visitor Centre provides information on food loss and waste to the visitors and encourages them to sort and recycle waste. There is an area in the shop dedicated to selling special products at reduced prices. The products may be close to their best-before date, or their packaging may not be in first-class condition. The Visitor Centre exhibition also hosts a unique piece of art, the Mignon bunny. It is made of 9,330 empty egg shells, which were rejected in Mignon egg production and would have otherwise ended up as biowaste at the chocolate factory.
Further information:
The Fazer media phone line is open Mon–Fri from 8 am to 4 pm, tel. +358 40 668 2998, media@fazer.com
Fazer Group
Fazer, The Food Experience Company, enables people to enjoy the best moments of their day. In 1891, the young Karl Fazer opened his first café with a mission to make food with a purpose – and a passion to create moments of joy for all the people around him. Shaping the next tastes, traditions and food experiences, Fazer’s vision is Towards Perfect Days. Fazer wants people to experience the Northern Magic it creates and builds on its strong heritage, consumer first approach and innovations to create the sustainable food solutions of the future. The Group focuses on fast-moving consumer goods, operates in eight countries and exports to around 40 countries. In 2020, Fazer Group had net sales of 1.1 billion euros and almost 8,500 employees. Fazer’s operations comply with ethical principles that are based on the Group’s values and the UN Global Compact.
Northern Magic. Made Real.
