Rising prices help us focus on reducing food waste
If not for the environmental concerns or the ability to channel food where there’s a shortage, the skyrocketing prices should have us more aware of the issues in the spotlight during Food Waste Action Week.
Some 58 per cent of food produced in Canada is lost or wasted each year somewhere along the chain from farm to fork. That’s about 35.5 million tonnes valued at $50 billion. Some 4.82 million tonnes of food, or nearly $21 billion worth, is lost or wasted during the processing and manufacturing process. Some 2.38 million tonnes of food, or more than $10 billion worth, is lost at the consumer level.
Food that is grown, raised, caught, or harvested, but never eaten, is considered to be food loss and waste. For example, a piece of fruit that is damaged during transport; food items in grocery stores that spoil before they can be sold; leftovers from a meal prepared at home that are not eaten; or food dishes prepared in a restaurant that are never served and are instead discarded.
All told, the annual cost of avoidable food loss and waste in Canada is $1,766 per household.
About a third of what we waste is food that could be rescued, redirected instead to food banks and other areas in need. Recovery of surplus food to feed people is not in itself a solution to food insecurity, but the best use of food is when its consumed by people rather than, say, being recycled or, worse yet, simply sent to landfill. The recovery process involves both redirecting items to food banks or use by commercial operations to create new food products.
At the household level, we could save money by avoiding waste. That’s a key consideration given that Canada’s Food Price Report for 2022 predicts the average family will spend an additional $966 for food this year compared to 2021.
Food waste is especially prevalent in North America, of course, where we’re rich enough to do so. Not that we don’t complain about the price of food nonetheless.
When we buy two-for-one deals or choose larger packages but let the extra items spoil, we’re contributing to the problem. (The same is true of producers who package and market foodstuffs in a way that makes smaller portions less economical.) We throw away items that have passed their best-before dates but are still good. As with the supermarkets, we toss produce that looks a little blemished but is fine in reality.
When we toss food, all the resources to grow, ship and produce it get chucked, too, including massive volumes of water, for instance. We also need to consider the energy and resources expended in bringing food to our tables. According to the United Nations Environment Programme, if food waste were a country, it would have the third-biggest carbon footprint after the U.S. and China.
Food Waste Action Week’s theme this year is ‘Food waste feeds climate change,’ based on research that shows food waste contributes an estimated eight per cent of all greenhouse gases worldwide.
In that vein, about 25 per cent of Canada’s methane emissions (a greenhouse gas that traps 25 times more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide) comes from landfills. That’s the rationale behind diversion programs such as the green bin employed in Waterloo Region.
Officials stress that by taking action on food waste, we can save money, protect the environment and create new business opportunities for our agri-food entrepreneurs. And we can help the country take steps towards meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goal to cut global food waste in half by 2030.
While farmers, processors and retailers are doing more to prevent loss and waste, we can have an impact at the individual level by making small changes that start with being conscious of the message being spread this week.