J.M. Smucker Company
At a Glance
Industry
Consumer Packaged Goods
Project Type
Food and Agriculture
Year
2022
Location
Orrville, OH
Summary
Erin Seglem proposed a framework and steps The J.M. Smucker Co. should follow to identify, measure and address food loss & waste across a product’s value chain.
Goals
The J.M. Smucker Co. (Smucker) has taken ambitious steps to address food loss & waste in specific areas within their organization. However, to further explore how food loss & waste could support their emissions and waste reduction goals, Smucker enlisted Erin Seglem to review peer and retail customer food loss & waste activities, assess current pain points within Smucker’s operations and provide data and stakeholder-informed recommendations for next steps that Smucker should take to address food loss & waste within their owned manufacturing and distribution sites and up and down the value chain.
Solutions
Erin took the following steps to tackle these objectives:
- Created a benchmark of food loss & waste activities of 5 peers and 10 retail customers: Researched publicly available customer and peer data regarding food loss & waste activities and identified leaders and laggards based on public target-setting, collaborative engagement with suppliers and customers, and implementation of food loss & waste-specific activities.
- Interviewed stakeholders & analyzed production and distribution/warehousing data: Spoke with internal and external stakeholders to understand current handling processes for production waste and product nearing stop ship dates. In addition, modeled and estimated food loss volumes and potential GHG emissions associated with increased volumes of production.
- Recommended next steps: Proposed next steps for Smucker to follow in order to begin addressing food loss & waste within their operations along with a framework for how to prioritize food loss & waste activities within their owned production and distribution sites before moving to explore food loss & waste up and down their value chain.
Potential Impact
As a result of Erin’s work, Smucker has clear next steps to expand food loss & waste reduction activities into their operations. These next steps include measuring food loss within production sites, engaging site staff in addressing and preventing food loss during production, improving the process for handling product nearing stop ship dates to keep it out of the landfill, and increase the volume of food donated for human consumption.