“In the current food system, for every $1 spent on food, society pays $2 of economic, social, and environmental costs,” says a 2019 report by Google and the Ellen Macarthur Foundation.
With Canada’s food waste problem under scrutiny from governments and consumers, food manufacturers are under increasing pressure to reduce waste and improve waste management processes.
And as many manufacturers set ambitious ESG targets, more and more are searching for waste management consultants to get a clearer picture of the liabilities and opportunities present in their waste streams.
But what do waste management consultants do?
What services can waste management consultants provide?
A waste consultant can:
Give a complete picture of your waste
- Audit your waste
- Determine the volume of individual waste streams, including where waste is coming from and why it is rejected
- Collect and share ongoing, real-time data on your waste in order to monitor improvements and changes over time
- Determine strategies for reducing total waste volume
Handle waste on your behalf
- Identify safe and efficient processes for handling and waste disposal
- Collect and handle different types of waste streams on your behalf
- Train staff on waste management best practices and using associated technology
- Ensure compliance
Turn waste into opportunity
- Identify opportunities and offer solutions for converting waste streams into environmentally friendly revenue streams (such as converting bakery waste to animal feed) to fuel the circular economy
- Improve ESG ratings and narratives around waste management and waste carbon footprints
- Help with sustainability reporting
What is a waste audit?
Waste management consulting typically begins with a waste or ‘process’ audit, which helps to give a complete picture of present-day operations. At PRI Environmental, we provide two kinds of process audits: detailed waste audits, and product loss audits.
Detailed waste audits
These audits identify hotspots for improving waste sorting and collection. In a detailed waste audit, our team studies the exact makeup of your waste streams, and identifies the original waste source, providing a complete picture of the waste volume generated from each area of your operations.
To conduct a detailed waste audit, our team collects a sample of waste across a determined timeline and subset of processes. We track actual contents and summarize our audit findings in a report.
Your team can use this report to inform operational decisions, and our team uses the report to improve your waste management.
Product loss audits
These audits evaluate how facility-level operations function from an efficiency, waste, and emissions perspective. We conduct interviews with key facility team members to understand pain points to assess business-as-usual operations to evaluate efficiency, wasted time and resources, and risks to facility downtime using sustainability principles.
The data collected from a product loss audit helps our team identify productive operational opportunities that also contribute to our client’s corporate sustainability goals. Product loss audits allow us to design a highly customized waste reduction strategy based on your specific operations, which in turn helps us to systematically define and target your high-priority waste streams and generation processes.
How can a waste management consultant help your bakery manufacturing facility?
Waste audits can help to identify inefficiencies and unnecessary product loss. Using your audit data, interviews with facilities teams, and deep industry knowledge, consultants can conduct opportunity assessments to help you capitalize on circular opportunities of your waste.
For example, PRI Environmental helps manufacturers turn bakery waste into ingredients for animal feed. In collaboration with our industry partners, we collect bakery food waste and select other food waste streams, to process into valuable ingredients for animal feed and pet food.
Recent analysis by KPMG Canada predicts a future where waste diversion is part of business as usual: “We will move to a ‘restorative’ process of production. Innovative new products will be created from what would once have been regarded as waste, such as furniture and clothing from plastic, effectively turning trash to cash,” says the article. Food manufacturers who capitalize on the waste diversion opportunities available now will benefit from an early-mover advantage.
Where to find a waste management consultant in Ontario, Canada
If you represent a food or bakery manufacturer in Ontario or Quebec, PRI Environmental can turn your waste into an environmentally positive revenue stream. At PRI Environmental, it’s our mission to help Canada’s food manufacturers minimize costs, maximize value, and mitigate the risk of their waste management practices. Our unique bakery-waste-to-animal-feed solution is ideal for Ontario and Quebec-based food manufacturers.
Interested in learning more about PRI Environmental’s waste recovery options? Contact us today.