Imagine a future where we're all eating insects.
In the fight against food waste, it
might be closer than you think.
These black fly larvae might not look that appetising,
but they yield a high-quality protein.
They're being farmed in a small facility under the rail arches
by London Bridge.
Oh, the smell.
Oof.
First, black soldier flies are encouraged
to meet in an artificial and controlled environment.
Their eggs are then extracted and the baby larvae
are fed food waste from local businesses.
So we collect food waste, such as coffee and beer waste.
We process it and then we put it into feeding units
where we add baby larvae.
We wait for a 12-day cycle and they've
left behind the fertiliser.
So we now then can separate the larvae from the fertiliser
and then use the fertiliser to grow new crops
and obviously use the larvae to dry and turn into the products.
Nothing goes to waste.
The main product for now is fish food,
but the insect protein powder could eventually
be sold for human consumption.
Founder Kieran believes he's producing
the most efficient and environmentally friendly
protein source on the planet.
That's important because the UN says around a third
of all food produced globally every year is wasted.
That's 1.3bn tonnes or $1tn US dollars.
And that means wasted water, wasted land,
wasted energy, wasted money, and greater greenhouse gas
emissions.
The perfect business would be to go into the gym industry
and to people who want high protein,
low-fat diets because it is incredibly high quality
protein.
Your vegetable-based proteins have an amino acid profile
around here while your meat-based proteins.
And of course, all other meat-based proteins
have that environmental degradation.
The question really is, why wouldn't you eat insects?
There isn't a why not.
Would you eat an insect?
Go on, then.
Let's give it a go.
Here we go.
Yeah.
That's not bad.
Quite nutty, isn't it?
Exactly.
With some added salt and chilli, I'd
even go as far as saying the black fly larvae could taste
pretty good with a cold beer.
In the same London Bridge unit, SafetyNet
has developed technology to combat waste
in commercial fishing.
The UN says around 27 per cent of fish caught
are lost or wasted.
Bycatch can include juvenile fish, protected species,
or crustaceans, which are then thrown back
into the sea, often dead.
We design lights that fit into fishing nets like this,
called Pisces.
And we use these to help guide fish out of the nets
by selectively communicating with them,
if you like, based on what they can see.
You communicate with the fish.
How does that happen?
So we turn these lights on and some fish can see some colours.
So, for instance, like a blue light
if you're a particular species of fish.
And other fish maybe can't see that so well.
So we might light up one part of the net like Las Vegas
and make it really bright.
And they'll be like, what's that?
And they'll swim over and look at it and find their way out.
And the other fish swim past as if there's nothing
really going on.
And that helps us separate species out.
Household waste is a big part of the problem, too.
UK households on average waste the equivalent of seven meals
a week.
Tessa Clark was so stunned at the scale of the problem that
she founded Olio, a mobile app that lets consumers with
unwanted food connect with neighbours living nearby who
might take it off their hands.
Food waste as an issue has not yet had its moment,
but it is growing rapidly in terms
of the level of public consciousness around the scale
of this problem.
But I very much hope that food waste
is going to be considered in the same way
as plastic waste now is.
It is completely unacceptable.
It's going to take someone who is really sort of a mainstream
leader to step forward and to highlight to the world
the scale of this problem and the immediacy
with which we need to solve it.
Tech start-ups are doing their bit,
but there are low-tech ways to reduce food waste, too.
One of the most simple solutions is raising awareness.
Most of us don't realise just how much we're throwing away
or how much it's costing.
It's costing us on average in the UK about £60 a month.
For a family of four, that's over £700 a year.
The most important thing is we understand
that we waste food in the first place,
understand how much we're actually wasting.
This is particularly true in businesses.
And then taking simple steps to actually reduce it.
Make a list before you go shopping if you're in the home.
For business, the critical thing is to operationalise food waste
measurement.
The UN's sustainable development goals
aim to half global food waste at the retail and consumer level
by 2030.
Tech start-ups can play their part and maybe one day,
insects will be on the menu.
But understanding how much we waste in the first place
is at least a first step to hatching a solution.