Dr Pearl Lefadola

Botswana | Ensuring a safe, sustainable, and adequate food supply is a cornerstone of human health and food security. However, over 30 per cent of food is lost or wasted annually along the supply chain. At the same time, an estimated 735 million people are food insecure and face the triple burden of malnutrition globally. Recent reports estimate that approximately 14% of global food produced is lost during the post-harvest stage, and up to 17% of food is wasted at the retail stage, with fruits and vegetables accounting for up to 66% of this food loss and waste (FLW). Fruits and vegetables are the food categories with the highest tonnage of garbage.

In Botswana, there is limited data on the magnitude of food waste across different supply chain stages. However, a study conducted by Nagabooshnam (2012) in Gaborone, the capital of Botswana, shows that food waste (26% of total waste) is the second most generated type of waste after paper (30%). A study on agro-produce loss in Botswana shows that tomatoes are the most wasted, accounting for 28% of all produce loss studied. The highest food loss and waste of fruits and vegetables is attributable to their intrinsic perishability. This highlights the importance of addressing food loss and waste in the fruit and vegetable supply chain.

Sustainable food systems are crucial to addressing issues of food security, poverty alleviation, and adequate nutrition, and they play a vital role in building resilience in communities responding to a rapidly changing global environment. Considering the exponential increase in fruit and vegetable waste generation and its impact on all pillars of sustainability, it's important to explore strategies to prevent food waste.

A critical first step towards mitigating the problem is quantifying the food waste generated. There is an urgent need to address food loss and waste to achieve Sustainable Development Goals 2 on zero hunger, SDG 3 on good health and well-being and SDG 12 on responsible consumption and production, with an emphasis in Goal 12.3, which is to halve food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including ppostharvestosses by 2030 (United Nations, 2024). One promising approach to achieving these goals is upcycling FLW, a creative and innovative process that converts FW into higher-value products, thereby preventing them from becoming traditional waste. Therefore, the study aims to explore strategies for upcycling food loss and waste in the tomato supply chain, leading to the development of specific value-added products.

In Botswana, a considerable amount of waste has been experienced in the vegetable supply chain following the government's ban on importing certain vegetables in 2022. The vegetable importation ban was imposed to support local farmers, improve horticultural competitiveness, and increase national food security. However, many farmers engaged in vegetable production face challenges associated with this initiative, including poor produce quality, which leads to both qualitative and quantitative losses and waste.

Constraints such as limited farmer capacity, the severity of extreme weather events, including floods, droughts, and frost, inadequate infrastructure, a lack of policies and standards, inadequate supply chain management, and poor post-harvesting techniques are cited as significant challenges to horticultural production. These constraints contribute to high post-harvest losses in Botswana's horticultural sector. Tomatoes in Botswana are particularly scarce. This may be due in part to high pest attacks, which include the African bollworm, spider mites, whiteflies, cutworms, tomato semi-looper, and tomato leaf miners. Post-harvest, amongst these pests, the tomato leaf miner (Tuta Absoluta) is the most destructive, often causing a 100% yield loss if control measures are not promptly implemented. On the consumer end, there is an inconsistent supply, frequently resulting in a severe acute shortage of vegetables, including tomatoes and potatoes, as well as an outcry regarding the poor quality of these vegetables. Dr Lefadola's research project proposes developing value-added products from waste in Botswana's tomato supply chain.

This initiative will yield both environmental and economic benefits, as well as enhanced nutrition, improved food security, and a positive impact on the country's overall health. Upcycling food waste will play an essential role in reducing the potential effects of FLW on the environmental, economic, and social pillars of sustainability. 

Dr Lefadola's study aims to develop a value-added upcycled food product from food waste in Botswana's tomato supply chain. Given the consumer trends, food preferences in Botswana, and potential nutritional and functional benefits, the study proposes developing a fermented tomato-based soup. Soups are consumed frequently by many consumers in Botswana. The outputs of the proposed project will further enhance local food processing capabilities, knowledge acquisition, and the income of various stakeholders in the food supply chain, including women and youth. The upcycled product will ultimately be introduced to the Botswana market, thus contributing to the number of minimally processed tomato products available to consumers and addressing the nutrition gap. This will also reduce reliance on tomato imports and provide an affordable product from upcycling food waste.

Dr Lefadola will assess the magnitude of post-harvest loss in Botswana, investigate the causes of the loss and waste, and then discuss the current mitigation strategies. She will then develop and standardise a recipe for the fermented soup from tomato waste and analyse its nutritional composition, as well as its physicochemical and functional properties. She will also evaluate the sensory qualities of the upcycled food product. Her study is grounded in pragmatic philosophy, as it aligns with the general goal of finding a locally relevant and action-oriented solution to food waste in Botswana's tomato supply chain, promoting sustainability. The study will apply a multi-phase mixed research design. It will be conducted in three administrative districts of Botswana: Kgatleng, Central, and North-East, which are the principal tomato production districts in Botswana.

Dr Boineelo Pearl Lefadola is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences at the University of Botswana, Botswana. She holds a PhD in Consumer Science from the University of Pretoria, South Africa, and a master's degree in Culinary Arts Management from the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom. Her fields of specialisation include food waste management, food product development and production. Her research interests include food waste management and upcycling, indigenous plants with medicinal and nutritional benefits, novel food product development using indigenous foods, the consumption and utilisation of protein alternatives, including edible insects, demand creation for sustainable diets, and food security. She has authored several articles in high-impact journals. Dr Lefadola has been awarded the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) Research Stays for University Academics and Scientists fellowship. She is the Coordinator of the Towards Enhancing Sustainable and Innovative Environmental-Change Solutions (TESIECS) consortium, a project designed to capacitate individuals to be environmental thought leaders. She is also a recipient of the AREF (The Africa Research Excellence Fund) Women's Grant Writing Programme.