Over one billion tonnes of food wasted a year - UN

[Feuer Frei!]

AROUND a third of the food produced in the world every year - about 1.18 billion tonnes - gets lost or wasted, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) says. "Given the limited availability of natural resources it is more effective to reduce food losses than increase food production in order to feed a growing world population," the FAO said in a report released today.
The FAO said the amount of food lost or wasted every year is equivalent to more than half of the world's annual cereals crop.
Some 925 million people around the world suffer from hunger.
The report said that the problem in the developing world was mainly food losses - through, for example, crop failures and poor infrastructure.
In industrialised countries, the issue is more about "retailers and consumers throwing perfectly edible foodstuffs into the trash".
The report found that in Europe and North America consumers wasted between 95 and 115 kilograms of food every year.
The report found that in the retail industry there was an "over-emphasis on appearance". "Surveys show that consumers are willing to buy produce not meeting appearance standards as long as it is safe and tastes good," it said.
"Consumers in rich countries are generally encouraged to buy more food than they need," the FAO said, giving as an example oversized ready-to-eat meals produced by the food industry and fixed-price buffets in restaurants.
The data was contained in a report commissioned by the FAO from the Swedish Institute for Food and Biotechnology for "Save Food!" - a conference being held in Germany later this month.


SOURCE


Food wastage! I hate it.
I manage a restaurant, have done so for most of my life, and i see a lot of wastage every day. By customers who's eyes are bigger than their stomachs. I've seen food come back that has had maybe a bite or two taken out of a steak or Chicken and the rest, along with untouched side dishes, and i just shake my head. Makes me angry that.
And no, it's not because the food is bad either.

[Betonov]

That pizza an hour ago sure wasn't wasted... buuurp

I don't think wasted food is not the real problem. It's the lack of infrastructure and political stability to ensure a proper intensive farming and abundance of food.
We can't take a half eaten steak and ship to subsharan Africa or soup leftovers to the slums of India. We also can't re-serve it to the next customer.
But the truth also is, that we intentionally destroy tonns of grain or other produce to ensure the prices don't fall too much.

[Skybird]

It is a European fact that half of the potatoes produced here gets destroyed immediately becasause their shape is not geometrically perfect enough to be brought to the markets, they would not be bought, they say. That'S queer.

And the food prices has seen prices growing in the third world becasue agricultural farm land is used to produce plants that are to be turned into gas to feed our thirsty cars. That is not queer anymore, that is straightout perverse.

And while we talk about cutting traffic emissions, we import potatoes from Egtypt to Germany and denmark, as if German and Danish farmers do not produce them themselves. That is dumb.

People of the past used to chnage their daily food plan according to what was available at the various seasons of the year. Today, we think everything must be available edvery day around the whole year. That is - well, I would rate it as a form of hysteria.

[Betonov]

Originally Posted by Skybird

It is a European fact that half of the potatoes produced here gets destroyed immediately becasause their shape is not geometrically perfect enough to be brought to the markets, they would not be bought, they say. That'S queer.

Even those that are to be turned into mashed potatoes or chips. Now THAT'S peverse

[Stealhead]

I have a friend who is a manager of a Publix(American supermarket chain) did you know that once a store gets its next food shipment if the previous shipment is still there and has not been sold they simply toss out the "old" product at least produce wise even if it has plenty of shelf life left?That is pretty stupid because it has still plenty of storage life left.The really stupid thing is because of "food safety laws" they cant donate this perfectly good food to someone which makes no sense because it is sitting in cold storage and is not spoiled.

I mean that is why we have refrigeration systems to store a product for a longer time.I fully agree on the buy to much thing as well many places give you way too much food not to mention that many Americans eat like vacuum cleaners which is bad either way if you dont eat it all then its good food wasted if you eat it all you become a fat ass or give your heart the urge to explode personally I try to avoid eating at places that serve too large of portions and most places in the US that serve too much the food is bland anyway honestly.

And the appearance thing is even dumber I say let that OCD person who is that picky just not eat because they dont like the "look" of the product I bet after a few days of not eating much they'll turn round and as a bonus they will be cured of OCD and then its an epic win.

[papa_smurf]

Well, makes my effort to save food look insignificant.

[STEED]

Originally Posted by Skybird

It is a European fact that half of the potatoes produced here gets destroyed immediately becasause their shape is not geometrically perfect enough to be brought to the markets, they would not be bought, they say. That'S queer.

It's what I call food snobbery, customers and supermarkets who adopt this snobbery attitude piss me off. There was a good series here in the UK a few years ago that looked in to this, for example I forget the type of veg which came from Africa and if it was splatted with mud it was rejected!!!

WTF is it with this kind of thinking, I would gladly buy it and wash it myself.

[MH]

Maybe UN should start buying more surplus food and feed starving people in Africa instead of meddling in politics.
That would be useful for a change.

[magic452]

Now there is a good idea.

Magic

Betanov and Steed both swallowed it.
It should have been fairly obvious that when you get Skybird linking the words "european" and "fact" that it might be dodgy.
Half the crop isn't destroyed immediatly because of its shape. Funny shaped spuds are only rejected by some bulk buying supermarkets and by the large automated potato processors making food, what they don't buy goes to smaller retailers, starch processors(who will also buy the peelings and waste from the large automated potato procesors) or into animal fodder.

[Penguin]

For anyone interested in this topic, here is an interesting documentation about the food madness: We feed the World (including english subtitles)

@Tribesman: The supermarkets are only at the end of the chain. It are the wholesalers that buy the stuff in bulk. They indeed have the demand for food in certain shapes.

[MH]

Originally Posted by Tribesman

Betanov and Steed both swallowed it.
It should have been fairly obvious that when you get Skybird linking the words "european" and "fact" that it might be dodgy.
Half the crop isn't destroyed immediatly because of its shape. Funny shaped spuds are only rejected by some bulk buying supermarkets and by the large automated potato processors making food, what they don't buy goes to smaller retailers, starch processors(who will also buy the peelings and waste from the large automated potato procesors) or into animal fodder.

Potatoes expertise definitely suits you.

@Tribesman: The supermarkets are only at the end of the chain. It are the wholesalers that buy the stuff in bulk.

"some bulk buying supermarkets" .
Some of the larger supermarket chains act as their own wholesalers and even get in on the agricultural production level.

[MH]

Originally Posted by Penguin

@Tribesman: The supermarkets are only at the end of the chain. It are the wholesalers that buy the stuff in bulk. They indeed have the demand for food in certain shapes.

Lots of vegetables that go on export from here are genetically engineered to have nice shape.

[Penguin]

Originally Posted by Tribesman

"some bulk buying supermarkets" .
Some of the larger supermarket chains act as their own wholesalers and even get in on the agricultural production level.

Yep, true - I wanted to point out that the entities that buy those large quantities are interested only in standartized sizes, for a number of reasons, like storage, transportation container standards, etc - and also because the customer has an image how a fruit should look like.
So it's also the fault of the consumer, but the question is how much of this image is made by those retailers.

Originally Posted by MH

Lots of vegetables that go on export from here are genetically engineered to have nice shape.

We don't buy them here - you can ship them to the US Genetically manipulated foods are not very popular in Europe - we can buy your avocados in all shapes and sizes.