Food goes to waste amid coronavirus crisis

Date: 5th April 2020

Author: ADAM BEHSUDI and RYAN MCCRIMMON

The coronavirus pandemic is leading the food industry and regulators to change policies as they grapple with empty shelves, a glut of fresh produce and milk, and sudden shifts in consumer buying habits.

The problem isn’t a shortage of food and commodities. If anything, food waste is becoming a bigger issue as traditionally big, bulk buyers — like college dorms and restaurant chains — suddenly stop receiving deliveries. As a result, millions of gallons of milk are being dumped, and farmers have no alternative but to turn fresh vegetables into mulch.

Federal agencies are scrambling to keep up with the altering landscape by easing rules governing trucking, imports, agricultural visas and labeling requirements for restaurants and manufacturers.

New alliances are being formed as demand from restaurants dry up and consumers look for new ways of delivery. Kroger, the largest U.S. supermarket chain, has partnered with foodservice giants Sysco and U.S. Foods, which normally supply the restaurant industry and large institutions, to share labor and keep store shelves stocked.

The partnerships offer employment to foodservice workers that would otherwise be furloughed or laid off as a result of a near shutdown of the restaurant sector. It also provides much needed manpower to the overwhelmed food retail industry.

Rewiring the U.S. food network, however, comes with logistical headaches.

“Since we’re buying more at the grocery store, it means [food items] have to be in that form,” said Pat Westhoff, director of the University of Missouri’s Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute. “We have a bunch of stuff that’s still stuck with restaurants, and they’re trying to decide what to do with it at this point.”

Farmers are also scrambling to recalibrate their production.

Richard Guebert Jr., Illinois Farm Bureau president, said his state’s meatpacking companies have fewer employees showing up because of concerns of being too close to other workers.

In the meantime, major food distributors including U.S. Foods and Performance Food Group are begging the Treasury Department to prioritize loan applications from their sector as companies shift operations to supply retailers.

“This kind of transition, even if temporary, takes time and investment as we adjust our warehousing, logistics and purchasing processes to meet a consumer-facing market,” they wrote in a letter to the Trump administration.

In the U.S., an excess supply of food production is forcing some sectors to take extreme measures and ask for extra creative solutions from the government.

“Clearly we’re in a time of crisis,” said Gordon Speirs, owner of Shiloh Dairy in Brillion, Wis. “We’ve lost 25 percent of our income just through the crashed market. Now we face the reality of having to dump milk on top of that.”

John Umhoefer, executive director of the Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association, said the foodservice sector accounts for half of all cheese sold in the U.S., while only one-third is sold at grocery stores. Without that critical market, milk producers need the government to “immediately begin to purchase dairy products” and distribute them to food pantries and school feeding programs, he said.

Westhoff, of the University of Missouri, said the drop in restaurant dining will eventually hamper demand for high-end meat products like steaks.

“Even though we have a short-run rush to the grocery store that gave us a run-up in prices very temporarily, we don’t think that’s going to last very long,” he said.

For the most part, food analysts say consumers don’t need to worry about other countries that are putting in place export restrictions on food and agricultural goods. Vietnam, the third-largest exporter of rice, has temporarily suspended exports of the grain. Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, major wheat producers, have capped exports of the commodity.

So far, the U.S. appears to have faced fewer hurdles to transporting food and farm goods than other countries. Border checks across Europe, for example, have snarled trucking and at one point backed up traffic as far as 50 miles.