Food Waste: the problem and the solutions
Right at this moment, cockroaches are doing more to save the environment than you are. A big exaggeration? Not if you’ve ever thrown away leftovers from your plate or bought more food than you could manage to cook in a week. You’re part of the food waste problem. But just like cockroaches, you can also be part of the solution.
Before we get to how, let’s have a look at the current state of food waste.
Before we get to how, let’s have a look at the current state of food waste.
How serious is the food waste problem?
In a world of 7.7 billion people – the same world where we can create embryos from stem cells and 3D print a human ear – 1 in 10 people is chronically undernourished. And it’s not because there isn’t enough food on the planet to feed everyone. We make enough food to feed all the 7.7 billion and 2 billion more. But one-third of what we make doesn’t get consumed. This doesn’t mean that if we weren’t wasting any food, there wouldn’t be any hunger in the world -there are factors such as poverty, wars and climate change that also play a big part in world famine. But food waste is a missed opportunity to alleviate the problem.
Apart from its relation to world hunger, food waste is impacting us at another level as well. Food production takes a serious toll on the environment – not only in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, but also by consuming land, water and energy resources. When food goes uneaten, not only are these resources already wasted once, but the environmental impact of food continues. When it ends up in a landfill to rot, food emits harmful gases, including methane, which contributes to food waste’s total carbon footprint of 3.3 billion tonnes per year. That’s almost as much as the carbon emissions of the whole EU for 2015. And, if food waste were a country, it would take 3rd place in the list of global polluters, right after China and the US.
Last but not least, food waste also comes at a monetary price. The latest comprehensive EU-wide report on food waste, from 2012, suggests that the total costs of food waste are about 143 billion euros per year across the EU. Out of this amount, the cost for households is 98 billion. Let’s break this down. The population of the EU is about 512.6 million people and the average household consists of 2.3 people. That’s about 222.9 million households. And it means that food waste costs every single household about 440 EUR per year.
How is food wasted?
It’s not just you and your lunch leftovers. Food gets wasted to a different extent at every step of the supply chain.
30-40% of food waste happens during production and processing. In developing countries, most of the losses at this stage have to do with economic conditions and poor facilities. For example, poor farmers may choose to harvest their crops prematurely for quick cash. As a result, the nutritional and economic value of the food drops and its likelihood to be wasted increases. In other cases, the lack of proper storage or processing facilities may lead to unnecessary loss of food before it reaches the consumer.
30-40% of food waste happens during production and processing. In developing countries, most of the losses at this stage have to do with economic conditions and poor facilities. For example, poor farmers may choose to harvest their crops prematurely for quick cash. As a result, the nutritional and economic value of the food drops and its likelihood to be wasted increases. In other cases, the lack of proper storage or processing facilities may lead to unnecessary loss of food before it reaches the consumer.
Once food gets to a retail or food service facility, further losses occur. A lot of waste at this point happens purely because of aesthetics. Next time you go to the supermarket, notice how perfectly shaped the fruits and vegetables are. Behind those pretty faces is a huge amount of perfectly good produce which doesn’t reach consumers. Why? Often, supermarkets make the assumption that consumers wouldn’t buy fruits or vegetables that aren’t of a certain appearance, although consumer surveys don’t seem to support this. Unfortunately, the selection happens before you get to have a say about it.
And this leads us to where the greatest portion of food waste in the West happens – the consumer and household stage. Here’s where your lunch leftovers come in. And here’s where you actually have a say. In Europe, 53% of food is wasted at the hand of the consumer. To help you visualise, that’s 95-115 kg of food per person every year. In Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, the respective amount is under 11 kg per person/year.
There are several factors contributing to this difference. A key one is attitude towards food. As people living in the West, we have a higher purchasing power, so we can buy more. And, because we can buy more, we can demand more – including more choice variety, which increases the risk that products don’t get sold before their expiry date and go to waste. But in contrast to the great appreciation we show for eating food and for photographing it, we don’t seem to have enough respect for it. Do you think you’re different? If you’re in denial about your exact contribution to the food waste problem, or you’re just curious, you can use this template to track how much food you actually waste and how it impacts the environment.
Food waste: some of the solutions
Food waste is a serious problem, but instead of crying over spoiled milk, it’s much better not to let it spoil in the first place. Here are a couple of ways food waste can be curbed.
- Facility modernisation
- Government initiatives
- Out-of-the-box solutions
The ultimate solution: You.
To eliminate food waste completely, improvements are needed at every step of the food supply chain, from production to retail. These take time and are often out of your hands as a consumer. But a meaningful reduction of food waste is definitely in your hands.
Here’s what you can do.
In many countries, supermarkets offer discounts on products that are approaching their ‘use by’ or ‘best before’ dates. There’s a growing number of apps you can use to keep track of such deals. This way, you’re helping reduce food waste while also saving money. And, if you know you’ve just bought food that expires tomorrow, you’ll be more motivated to do something with it. It’s easier to justify eating out or getting take-away if you know your fridge contents still have a few days to go.
Here’s what you can do.
- Shop more often. Buy less.
- Know what food labels mean
In many countries, supermarkets offer discounts on products that are approaching their ‘use by’ or ‘best before’ dates. There’s a growing number of apps you can use to keep track of such deals. This way, you’re helping reduce food waste while also saving money. And, if you know you’ve just bought food that expires tomorrow, you’ll be more motivated to do something with it. It’s easier to justify eating out or getting take-away if you know your fridge contents still have a few days to go.
- Cut down on animal products
Final thoughts
Two generations from now, people are going to look back and wonder how we allowed for food waste to become such a big problem. After all, it’s not like finding a cure for cancer – you don’t need special expertise to contribute to a solution. Every time you do your groceries or consider throwing away food that can still be used, you get an opportunity to make those future generations happy. Use it.