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June 11, 2026

Category : Food

Agribusiness Featured Food

How Sustainability Can Boost Profit Margins for African Food Processors By Staff Reporter -June 3, 20260356 By Jay O’Nien, Sustainability Officer, Bühler Group Across Africa’s food and feed processing sectors, sustainability is increasingly moving to the centre of operational decision-making. Importantly, this shift is not being driven by environmental commitments alone. In many cases, it is being driven by something far more immediate: operational efficiency, profitability, resilience, and long-term competitiveness.Food Processors For processors across the continent, energy costs remain volatile and often high. Water availability is emerging as a significant operational concern in across regions. Post-harvest losses continue to place pressure on both profitability and food security. At the same time, export markets and international buyers are introducing more stringent requirements around traceability, carbon footprint, and resource use. Against this backdrop, sustainability is no longer simply about compliance or reputation. It is increasingly becoming a core business consideration. At Bühler, our sustainability strategy is built around what we call the “50/50/50” commitment: our goal to have solutions ready that can reduce energy consumption, waste, and water use by 50% across customer value chains. The important point is that many of these technologies already exist today.Food As part of our 2025 lifecycle assessment work across 15 industrial value chains in food, feed, and advanced materials, we found that reductions of at least 50% were achievable in one or more key environmental dimensions in 11 of those value chains. In every assessed value chain, more than 35% savings were achievable in at least one category. Sustainability and operational improvements go hand in hand These findings matter because they demonstrate that sustainability improvements are often directly linked to operational improvements. Lower energy consumption means lower operating expenditure. Better yield means less raw material loss. Reduced waste frequently translates into improved process efficiency and higher profitability. In practice, the most accessible opportunities for African processors lie in fundamental operational areas. Drying efficiency, grain storage, yield optimisation, energy monitoring, process control, and waste reduction all offer meaningful potential returns. Improved storage and drying infrastructure, for example, can significantly reduce post-harvest food losses, an issue with both economic and food security implications across the continent. Yield improvement is particularly important because it creates both economic and environmental benefits. Every tonne of raw material lost during processing represents wasted land, water, energy, fertiliser, logistics, and labour upstream in the value chain. Improving process efficiency therefore helps reduce environmental impact while strengthening commercial performance.Grains & Pasta Importantly, sustainability adoption in Africa is not uniform. Conditions vary significantly between countries, sectors, and processors. Access to reliable and affordable energy remains a challenge in numerous markets. Financing constraints can make capital-intensive upgrades difficult to prioritise. Water stress continues to affect both agricultural production and industrial operations in several regions. Reliable baseline data is critical One of the less discussed challenges is measurement itself. Without reliable baseline data on energy consumption, water use, waste generation, or yield loss, it becomes difficult for processors to identify where improvements are possible or to build a credible investment case for change.

Brenna
by Brenna0208
Sustainability is rapidly becoming a key business priority for food and feed processors across Africa. While environmental responsibility remains important, the growing focus on sustainability...