Kiwis waste $1.8b of food a year
Renali Narayan would throw out cucumbers, rice, and whole heads of lettuce and broccoli before she realised the damage she was doing.
‘‘When I heard the amount of carbon dioxide emissions being released from organics I flipped,’’ she said.
‘‘It sucks that people aren’t getting that connection but it takes time. I’m saving money because I buy in bulk and get all my organics from farmers markets on the weekend.’’
The 20-year-old Auckland University student now saves $100 a week on food and has her whole flat on board, but she’s a rare find.
A RaboDirect survey found New Zealanders are throwing away almost $2 billion of food a year, with younger people more likely to waste food than their parents.
‘‘I would throw out everything and anything before I turned zero waste. The rate we were throwing food out was ridiculous,’’ Narayan said.
The survey of 1003 people found almost 80 per cent of people said they did not like to waste food but 94 per cent did anyway, with an average of $1071 worth of food per household wasted each year.
This added up to $1.8b a year. Those who were young and ate out were more wasteful in all areas of life.
A Unicef report showed about 11 per cent of Kiwi children live in a home with food insecurity, slightly lower than the overall average of 12.7 per cent.
Rabobank New Zealand chief executive Daryl Johnson said lifestyle and age played a role in food budgeting.
‘‘It’s often presumed that younger generations are more environmentally conscious, and therefore conscious of wastage.
‘‘However, the survey found younger generations were more likely to eat out, were cooking meals from scratch less often, and were less likely to eat leftovers, compared with the older generations.’’
The survey found those who ate out more than three times a week, wasted on average 21 per cent of their grocery shopping. Wasting food was also linked to buying clothes and never wearing them and taking longer showers.
Millennials wasted the most food (15 per cent), and baby boomers wasted the least (8 per cent). Millennials also underestimated the scale of New Zealand’s food waste the most.
Johnson said New Zealanders were aware food wastage was an issue but underestimated how it could effect their back pocket.
‘‘The demand for food is set to rise considerably as a consequence of a growing and wealthier global population, with the world population forecast to increase by two billion people to more than nine billion by 2050,’’ he said.
He said to meet this demand, world food production would have to increase by at least 60 per cent, but arable land and natural resources were nearing their limits.
The survey found only 33 per cent of New Zealanders always plan meals in advance, and only 22 per cent freeze leftovers.