Wastage Of Food

Introduction

At the most basic level, food is a necessity for life. In the United States, 40% of food in the US Food Supply is not eaten. Our every busy lifestyles and our desire for easy and convenient options often results in forgetting what is the back of the fridge or simply not having enough time to make a meal out of the things in our fridge. America has normalized the want and need for bigger portions and “buy one, get one free” bundles to drive demand for products. These promotions often result in the customer having excess food that will later be wasted. On the retail level, food cosmetic regulation and standards accounts for a large amount of fruits and vegetable wastage. The confusing expiration dates on perishable food results in additional food wastage by supermarkets, restaurateurs and consumers.

In a time when money and food is a scarcity for many, it is absolutely shameful the amount of food we throw away. The average American family spends $2,000 of food it does not eat and throws out about 25lbs of food a month for a family of four. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization report on food loss, the direct economic consequences to producers of food wastage (excluding fish and seafood) run to the tune of $750 billion annually. In the United States, businesses and consumers combined lose as much as $198 billion per year because of wasted food (Venkat, 2011).

Food waste and environmental concerns

Through countless hours research and papers produce on the topic of global emissions, we can now understand how human activities are contributing to climate change. In many studies, human activities produce carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and fluorinated gases that all contribute to greenhouse gas. The ...

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... food waste. The mission of the Food Waste Challenge is to “fundamental shift in how we think about and manage food and food waste in this country”. Currently, the goal is to have 400 partners lined up by 2015 with another 600 to follow, for a total of 1,000 by 2020. In addition to consumer education the USDA and EPA will also support private sector efforts with technical assistance, management tools and the development of new waste-reducing technologies.

Globally, UNEP and FAO are founding partners of the Think Eat Save-Reduce Your Foodprint campaign that was launched earlier in the year and whose aim is to assist in coordinating world-wide efforts to manage down wastage. The World Resources Institute (WRI) and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) have identified the reduction of food loss as one of the leading global strategies for securing our food future.