For 700 million people in Africa and the Far-East, yams and cassava represent important crops for food security and as a source of income. The trouble is, losses during harvesting and processing are exceptionally high—at the level of 60% for yams and 30% for cassava. A new EU-funded research project called GRATITUDE aims at reducing such waste and losses. Keith Tomlins, a researcher in Food Science at the University of Greenwich's Natural Resources Institute in the UK, is the coordinator of the project since it started in January 2012.