British are the most wasteful
It’s not a huge surprise to discover that the UK wastes over 20% more food than the EU average, positioning us right at the bottom of the rankings.
The time is now to tackle food waste, through educating and improving our purchasing culture, ending our throwaway behaviour and creating a comprehensive food recycling system.
“If people could really see the amount of food waste they produced they would be shocked by how much of their weekly shop and therefore income ends up rotting away” said Philip Simpson, commercial director at ReFood, a UK food recycler..
Vision 2020, a movement for zero waste to landfill believe that 50% of all good produced on the planet never reaches its intended human stomach.
Recent news suggested that the world used more of its resources than it created in the last 12 months, meaning that we could really be headed for disaster. British people throw away 15m of the 41m tonnes of food bought annually, and that’s simply outrageous. The blame used to be put on supermarkets, and to some extended it still is, but the truth is that through research and development, they’ve managed to sort things out quite well. Anything that looks like it may become waste becomes reduced food, and is put in a dedicated section that has become very popular with thrifty shoppers.
This is not a defence of supermarkets, for they do have massive faults when it comes to the ‘beauty of produce’. The combination of consumers who don’t like to purchase misshapen fruit and veg, the supermarkets who choose not to stock them and the farmers who are left with tonnes of ‘ugly’ crops is massively contributing to the food waste problem. Naturally, fruit and vegetables are not the beautiful examples that you are used to seeing, the modern ‘beautiful’ produce is the result of chemical engineering.
Unsurprisingly, the lesser developed world has food waste levels that are between 6% and 15%, partially because they buy for their needs, but it can also be deduced they they have a less wasteful culture and find more application for the food waste. Should the British look to these parts of the world to uncover the answers to reducing food waste, or do we need to accept that we are wrong and simply make a more conscious effort?
See a machine that helps keep food waste low.
See an expert panel discuss the food waste issue.
See a guest blogger talk about some food waste solutions.