Case Study on Issue of Food Wastage

Grant Proposal

  Ameya Kulkarni, Niranjan Kodgule, Pranav Nikam

RIT

Graduate Writing Strategies

Dr. Poteat

December 13, 2013

Table of Contents Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………………2 The Problem……………………………………………………………………………………….4 Goals for the Project……………………………………………………………………………… 4

Significance………………………………………………………………………………. 4

Partnership………………………………………………………………………………... 5 Mission Statement……………………………………………………………………….5 The People………………………………………………………………………………...5 Hypothesis………………………………………………………………………………... 6

Literature Review…………………………………………………………………………………6 Approaches & Methods…………………………………………………………………………   8

Target Population.         9

Data Collection.         9

Limitations        10

Sharing the Research.        11

Schedule        12

Budget         13

Conclusion.        14

References        15

Abstract

         This paper describes the problem of food wastage at different levels of supply chain from wholesaler, retailer to consumer, and a solution to minimize this problem. Oxygen is the main cause of most food spoilages. It allows food spoiling microorganisms to grow and thrive. Most of the food packaging today is done as Modified Atmosphere Packaging (MAP) to extend shelf life of the products such as poultry, bread, meat, and coffee. In MAP, the food package is flushed with an inert gas such as nitrogen or carbon dioxide from inside reducing the oxygen content from 21% to 0.5-2% (Mills et al., 2011). The oxygen level inside the package could rise due to several reasons such as a leak, tempering, or improper sealing. The solution to minimize this problem is an oxygen indicator which would assure the freshness of the food indicating proper oxygen level inside the package.

Introduction

In this 21st century era we human had become very busy in daily schedules and this has led to the growth in industry of packed and ready to go food. All this packed food is majority times packaged with MAP which is controlled by nitrogen and carbon di-oxide flushing to increase the shelf life of the product. The main problem faced by all the consumers is that they don’t know whether the product is in good condition to eat because many times product spoiled before the date of expiry. So there is no indicative method to identify the product is spoiled or not which finally led to food going into trash and landfills. This increases the food wastage annually in the country.