Bain/BCG - Hunger Warriors

The candidate should recognize that the most important thing to look at first is where waste occurs. It is important to not give the candidate any information until they ask whether we have information on the major contributors to waste. This is critical for assessing case leadership.

An ideal candidate will make 3 key observations:

1. The total waste is over 1/3 of the total food produced (34%) – reducing food waste could have the equivalent effect of feeding 34% more people…rather than having to produce 34% more
2. The #1 source of waste is production
3. The #2 source of waste is in homes

The candidate should look to focus on reducing waste at the beginning and the end of the food journey, as changes here will have the most total impact.

A strong candidate will provide ideas in the following:

Climate Change / Adverse Weather

• Flood
• Drought
• Early/late season change

Suboptimal Crop

• Wrong crop for the region
• Non-GMO

Poor Farming Practices

• Improper fertilization
• Improper pest control
• Improper disease control
• Lack of crop rotation
• Wrong timing of planting, harvest, etc.

Once you are comfortable with the candidate’s response, ask them what our approach should be to resolving production waste.

Education

• Inform farmers on best practices
• Institute continuous learning and collaboration/sharing within communities
• Provide internet + self-learning access
• Implement crop rotation

Incentives/Regulation

• Incentivize farmers to plant right crops
• Remove improperly targeted subsidies
• Regulate wastage

Analytics

• Better predict weather patterns (long-term and immediate)
• Identify optimal crops for terrain
• Determine optimal land for planting
• Measure soil health for crop rotation optimization
• Measure plant health in real-time for optimal management

Funding

• Microfinance
• Implement crop futures
• Low-interest funding
• Crowd-funding

Access

• Access to fertilizer markets
• Access to proper labor
• Access to optimal crops

If the candidate tries to convert the reduction in waste to a dollar amount, tell them that is not necessary. An excellent candidate would want to equate the % impact to a $ impact in order to determine which initiatives are worth the cost. However, you should re-direct them and state that we are looking to identify two initiatives to pursue.

The candidate should recognize that they need a low cost per tonne (black line) and a high reduction in waste percent (blue bar). As such, they should identify the rollout of resistant GMO crops and shared internet resources as the two optimal initiatives.

The candidate should realize that they need to calculate the absolute percentage point reduction that we can expect and tie it back to the 8% overall waste contribution that consumption accounts for.

The candidate should estimate that the developed world population is approximately 1.5 Billion (1B or 2B is acceptable), and that the developed world population is split, roughly, into 10% Wealthy, 60% Middle Class, and 30% Lower Class. 

The absolute percentage point reduction in consumption will be 32%. Given that the consumption sector accounts for 8% of overall waste, we can reduce global food waste by 2.56% (8% x 32%). For the sake of simplicity, we will attribute all of this sector’s waste to the developed world.

We recommend that Hunger Warriors tackle the food waste problem by focusing on the two largest sources of food waste: Production and At Table Consumption. 

We recommend that they address waste in the Production phase of the process by implementing the rollout of resistant GMO crops and shared internet resources in order to reduce production waste by 20% and 15%, respectively.