Reducing food waste is imperative for fighting world hunger, and technologies to reduce food waste can also help improve food safety and shelf life. Food wastage can also cause prices to rise, putting nutritious food out of the reach of the world's poorest. Based on World Health Organization (WHO) data, if the current trend of food loss and waste could be reversed, using advanced preservation and protection technologies, then enough spoiled food would be saved to feed two billion people—or three times the estimated 700 million people living in undernourished conditions today.
Making the food supply even more precarious this coming year is the added pressure on global food stocks that may lead to shortages of important foodstuffs. Both Ukraine and Russia are leading global producers of wheat, and Ukraine is well known as a global breadbasket and major exporter of vital staples. World food supplies were already tight before this year. If these two countries are unable to deliver their crops to global markets, it will be a challenging year to keep world populations fed. Reducing food waste by implementing innovative preservation technologies is more important than ever.