McKinsey Examines Cost Savings For Grain Traders By Cutting Post-Harvest Waste

More than 40 percent of the total food for human consumption that is wasted occurs throughout the commodity supply chain at the post-harvest level. And although these losses are striking, they are particularly so for cereal grains, with one study finding that as much as 400 million tons of grain, or 20 percent of global grain production, was lost in 2018.

McKinsey concluded in this recent article that cutting this post-harvest waste could result in savings for grain trading companies, and that reducing grain losses in wheat, maize, barley, rice, oats, rye, and millet by 75 percent could lead to a virtual land gain equivalent to three times the cropland area of France.

Most challenging to the mitigation of this loss are factors such as geographic location, climate, and pest populations of different global production zones, as well as losses differing at varying points along the supply chain. McKinsey concluded that losses attributed to temperature and humidity may be key to tackling overall waste reduction, and explores the different waste reduction technologies that could be appropriate at different stages of the value chain. More on this story