- While more than 30% of the world’s food is wasted, more than 1 billion people suffer from hunger.
According to Greenly’s guide to Global Food Waste in 2022, more than 30% of food will be lost or wasted yearly. This figure is even more impressive in view of the world’s vast number of hungry people. Food waste is not only inefficient but also a social justice issue.
You must believe that food waste just refers to the food we throw away after cooking meals or the uneaten food at fancy dining venues.
Food waste is defined as edible food that is intended for human use but is thrown away or expires. This can happen in several contexts, including food preparation, sales, and service. Plate waste, bad food, and left-over peels and rinds are just a few examples.
Uneaten agricultural, forestry, and fishery products are considered to as “food loss.” It happens during the manufacturing and delivery of food. It is also caused by a decrease in both the quantity and quality of diet. This could result from a number of reasons, for example, there may be supply chain interruptions due to fluctuating supply and demand, or spoilage caused by adverse weather conditions.
According to ReFED, 24% of all food in the United States (54 million tons) is wasted. In 2019, the US squandered 35% of the available food (229 million tons). While some are donated to people in need and more is recycled, the vast majority is abandoned as food waste, which is either disposed of in a landfill, burned, poured down the drain, or just left to rot in the fields.
The Impact of Food Waste in Developing Countries
When food remains uneaten, the resources utilized to make it are also squandered. Even if food is thrown out, it takes a lot of energy to grow, harvest, transport, cool, cook, or otherwise prepare it. It is an irresponsible use of our food supply chain, with serious ramifications for the environment and natural resources, food insecurity, and the economy.
According to UNEP, food waste accounts for 8-10% of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, food waste is worse than overall aviation emissions (1.9%), plastic production (3.8%), and oil extraction (3.8%), as shown in the article “Strategies to reduce the global carbon footprint of plastics“.
In 2019, the US spent $408 billion on excess food. 70% of this, or $285 billion, was attributed to food waste. While the financial cost of uneaten food is borne primarily by consumers, food excess within food business sectors was valued at over $250 billion.
Food waste is a structural problem, and it’s essential to recognize that. Fresh food, which includes fruits and vegetables, meats, prepared fresh deli items, seafood, milk and dairy, and some grain goods such as bread and bakery items, represent more than three-quarters of surplus food. Perishables are frequently thrown because they spoil quickly. Non-perishable foods, on the other hand — pasta, canned goods, and highly processed, shelf-stable products — are often wasted less since they don’t expire as quickly. Fruits and vegetables account for more than one-third of all food waste. In contrast, fish and meats are the most expensive and least wasted food items.
In developing countries, a significant quantity of food goes uneaten, but waste is a bigger problem in developed countries. By comparison, China, India, and Russia waste less food per capita than the US, Japan, Germany, France, the UK, Spain, and Australia.
Unfortunately, food is lost and wasted everywhere, and changes are required in all food systems to reduce environmental consequences and guarantee that what we do produce ends up where it is meant – in the tummies of people all over the world, according to WWF.
Tech Solutions Reducing Food Waste
Some startups in Latin America are trying to solve this problem directly. Through technology and a newish habit, they offer consumers the surpluses from restaurants, bakeries, and supermarkets, items that are still safe for human eating but were previously thrown for a number of reasons, at up to 70% off on their apps.
In Brazil, the startup Food to Save offers consumers to choose only the kind of food they want (salty, sweet, or mixed) and one of three available bag sizes/prices ranging from $2 to $4. Within the bags are items that will soon expire or have a less-than-ideal aspect (think “ugly” fruits and veggies), but are still safe to eat. The service is now available in Sao Paulo and Campinas, 274.9 miles away from Sao Paulo.
In Chile, GoodMeal allows customers to buy surprise bags from restaurants, bakeries, and signed partnerships with the country’s three main restaurant chains (Starbucks, Juan Valdez, and Dunkin’ Donuts). The app is available today in Santiago and Via del Mar.
There is a Mexican Cheaf with the same premise as GoodMeal in Mexico. Both apps claim off-the-shelf discounts of up to 70%. The fee paid by the restaurants differs amongst them.
GoodMeal does not publish the percentage; it only declares that it charges “a little fee” on each transaction, as well as an annual administrative fee to cover running costs. The commission required by Cheaf is 20%. It varies between 30% and 40% in the Brazilian Food to Save.
What about the results?
Food to Save, GoodMeal, and Cheaf Mexican are developing sustainability apps in Latin America, combating waste that has an environmental impact or creates social injustice.
Food to Save ‘rescued’ 40 tons of food in seven months of operation, acquired by approximately 80,000 active users. Cheaf’s 100,000 users saved 150 tons of food from 600 businesses. GoodMeal claims to have saved 250 tons of food through its 25,000 paying users and 800 partner establishments.
Outside of the environmental issue, the socioeconomic factor is at the center of these organizations’ activities. When it comes to Brazil, the approach appeals to the attractiveness of the discount as well as avoiding these things from being abandoned in a context where over 20 million people are hungry. Unfortunately, Brazil returned to the hunger map in 2021 as a result of the present federal government’s destruction of public policies, a world-first setback.
Main photo: Food to Save
