It’s time to zero in on food waste
We must think about our produce – what we eat and what we throw away
FOR AEONS, parents have guilttripped children into eating all their food because less-fortunate children are starving somewhere in the world. Judging by the bounty seen in restaurants, grocery stores, at markets and on the streets, it’s hard to believe half a billion people in the world are going hungry while the rest are either making terrible food choices or are simply gluttons.
By 2050, the world’s population is projected to be 10billion (according to the EU Commission estimates). Our resources are not infinite, but the way we treat them, you’d think electricity comes from the plug, meat from the supermarket, our greens from the greengrocer, and water from the tap.
It takes money to produce all that – money that could be used to drive development in other areas and help the needy. Food production costs water, it produces emissions, reduces biodiversity and drives climate change. Our marine ecosystems are being degraded, drought is wreaking havoc on our farms, forests are disappearing and millions of people are hungry. We need to start thinking about how we manage and produce food, what we eat and food waste.
Worldwide, 2billion people are obese while half a billion starve. In South Africa, the latest Discovery Health figures show 60percent of women and 38percent of men are clinically obese, with 14million people going hungry every day.
Yet we throw away up to a third of all food produced in the country.
Nadene Marx-Pienaar from the food retail division in the department of consumer science at Pretoria University breaks down some staggering figures about our throwaway society.
“It’s estimated that 177kg of food waste is generated annually by the average South African (according to the latest study on it by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research [CSIR] from 2013),” she said.
“Findings from our study revealed that fruit and vegetables outranked all the other food groups in terms of food mostly wasted by households. Second were cereals and breads (including pasta, rice, cakes and pastries) with dairy products (including milk, yoghurt and cheese) in a close third place. The fourth most wasted food type is meat, poultry, fish and eggs.
“The self-reported percentage of purchased food wasted indicated that 31 percent of respondents waste more than HELPFUL sites: Visit savethefood.com for food storage tips; www.slowfood.com for information on responsible consumption and local producers (or find your local Slow Food chapter), and follow Love Food Hate Waste; Stop Food Waste; Ugly Fruit & Veg; FoodTank; FoodInsight.org and others on Twitter.
Slow in Joburg: On Saturday, Slow Food Johannesburg will be at the Soweto Theatre, with three events: a conference; a market, where urban farmers from Soweto and Orange Farm will be selling their produce; and an “eat-in” (an Nguni cow has been slaughtered for a nose-to-tail 30 percent of the fruit and vegetables that they buy, 34 percent waste more than 20percent of cereals and breads, 27percent waste more than 20percent of dairy products and 20 percent waste more than 20percent of the meat, poultry, fish and eggs that they buy.”
In total, that accounts for around 9 million tons of food that ends up in landfill.
In a 2013 study conducted by CSIR researchers Suzan Oelofse, Anton Nahman and Willem de Lange, entitled “The magnitude and cost of food waste in South Africa”, the costs the economy were estimated at R61.5 billion a year – or 2.1 percent of our GDP.
“At the same time, 70percent of poor urban households in South Africa live in conditions of food insecurity. Food is treated as a disposable commodity, especially in developed countries. Yet, almost one in seven people globally are estimated to be undernourished. Food waste does not only impact on food security, but has environmental impacts in the form of wasted resources and emissions,” they noted.
Food waste isn’t only what we throw in the bin though – it includes that which is lost during and after agricultural production; storage; manufacturing; distribution; competition between teams of chefs and local gogos – pre-booking only).
To book, visit www.webtickets.co.za or www.sowetotheatre.com.
Read up: Staff scientist at the US Natural Resources Defense Council, Dana Gunders’ book, the Waste-Free Kitchen Handbook offers suggestions to change behaviour around waste. Order at Amazon.com.
For a chef’s perspective, I can highly recommend Jamie Oliver’s Save with Jamie, which gives wonderful tips on shopping smart, cooking clever and wasting less. and consumption, they said.
“The largest costs of food waste occur in food distribution (R19.6bn), followed by processing and packaging (R15.6bn), and agricultural production (R12.5bn)… To meet the challenge of feeding growing populations and addressing food insecurity, massive reductions in the amount of food wasted across the food supply chain in South Africa are needed.”
Marx-Pienaar added: “Date codes – in particular sell-by and expiry-date labels – are the most reported reason for wasting food. This is followed by poor product appearance and poor planning in terms of purchasing, preparation and storage.”
It’s important to know the difference between “best-before” and “use-by”: the former relates to quality and the latter to safety.
“Use-by” dates mean food can be consumed until that date – after that, if it hasn’t been frozen, it’s not fit for consumption.
If food has reached its “best before” date, it’s still safe to eat, but it may not be at its best. Best-before dates are important guidelines to ensure food safety but they’re not cast in stone as many foods are still good to eat days – sometimes weeks – after they’ve expired.
Some foods, such as cold meats and ready meals, could become dangerous but other foods – such as honey, cornflour and sugar – don’t go off and the dates have the psychological effect of encouraging consumers to throw out perfectly good food.
I asked two of the major food retailers about their approaches to food wastage.
Woolworths responded: “During the development of a new product, the shelf life of the product is assessed both organoleptically (taste) and from a safety point of view. Once the total life of a product has been determined, the life is split to provide time for Woolworths to distribute the product to all stores (sell-by date) and sufficient time for the consumer to enjoy the product (best-before/use-by date).
“When determining the shelf life of a product, Woolworths does try to make provision for some ‘temperature abuse’, but the shelf life of a product is dramatically reduced when temperatures exceed the specified range. To ensure the foods you find in our Woolworths stores is always fresh and achieves the required shelf life, it is kept at optimum temperatures during processing, packing, transport and store display.
“Woolworths donates surplus food (beyond sell-by date) which would otherwise go to landfill from stores to charities. In the fiscal year ending 2016, we donated food to the value of R485 million.
“We recognise, however, that we generate waste across our entire value chain in the growing, making and manufacture of our products as well as in our customers’ homes.
“Through various means such as excellent temperature control in our logistics chain and stores as well as clear on-pack information, we try to minimise this waste as far as possible. There is still a long way to go, however, and we partnered with WWFSA, to complete a food waste scoping study to better understand the extent to which food waste is occurring across the Woolworths value chain.”
Pick n Pay is also focusing on waste reduction. David North, group executive for strategy and communication, said: “Pick n Pay doesn’t provide any leeway at all on expiry dates, which gives our customers comfort that their safety is our top priority. We make every effort to reduce waste by matching our ordering to what customers will buy and making sure food is looked after properly in our supply chain; for example, keeping it always at the right temperature.
“When food nears its expiry date and is unlikely to be sold, we seek a good use for as much of it as possible, including discounting. Last year, we donated nearly 2000 tons of food to FoodBank, which provided 5 million meals for needy South Africans. “
Donations from retailers and manufacturers helped FoodBank to feed 170000 people last year. About 550 non-profit organisations were assisted and 3 350 tons of food, valued at R23.5m, was distributed every month.
Lamees Martin, Foodbank SA’s marketing and communications officer explained: “(We) collect edible surplus food from manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers, and redistribute this food to verified NPOs that collectively feed thousands of hungry people daily.
“As a recipient of food donations, FoodBank SA has a responsibility to its beneficiaries to carefully check all products received at its warehouses. Hence we have quality checks for handling food donations, such as, checking all dates on all products and rejecting expired stock.”
France and Italy have recently been in the news for introducing laws governing food waste.
In France, retailers are penalised for wastage; in Italy, they’ll soon be incentivised for streamlining operations that encourage ethical behaviour.
As consumers, we have the power to vote with our forks to reduce waste. If we all put more thought into what we are eating (and doing so sustainably), preparing real food at home (rather than buying processed food) and wasting less, we would not only save resources, but we’d also be teaching our children to prepare for a future in which there’s plenty to go around.