We’ve got very good at removing food waste — and much less good at returning it to soil.
We’re encouraged to feel responsible when we put food waste into a caddy and send it off to be “recycled”. But it’s worth being honest about what usually happens next.
Most collected food waste is taken to large-scale industrial digestion plants. These systems are designed to extract energy, not to rebuild soil.
In aerobic digestion, oxygen is forced through the material to speed up breakdown. Carbon and nitrogen are rapidly oxidised and released as heat and gas. You may get electricity out, but biologically the nutrients are largely lost.
Anaerobic digestion captures methane, which is better than landfill, but it still prioritises fuel over soil. The food has left the local nutrient cycle.
Fermentation works differently.
Bokashi stabilises food waste without oxygen, using lactic acid bacteria and yeasts. pH drops, pathogens are suppressed, and nutrients are held in biological form. That fermented material can then feed compost, worms and soil — where it actually belongs.
We use bokashi in our own kitchen and across the farm, including in livestock housing, because it works in real conditions. Fermented inputs improve manure stability, compost behaviour and soil biology. It’s the same principle we accept in food: fermentation preserves value and improves digestibility.
And this is the important bit.
This doesn’t require new infrastructure, lorries or big budgets. A simple fermentation stage at home keeps nutrients local and useful, rather than exporting them.
If we care about soil health, food security and genuinely closing loops, we need to look beyond waste collection and ask a better question:
Does this system return nutrients to soil, or remove them?
If you’re interested in keeping food waste working where it’s produced, it’s worth grasping the concept of fermentation — and bokashi...
