Stop Food Waste Day
#StopFoodWasteDay
The last Wednesday in April is Stop Food Waste Day. It is a day to raise awareness of the growing worldwide food waste crisis and address some of the world’s food production, hunger, and climate change challenges. Food waste refers to the discarding or disposing of edible food that is still fit for human consumption. This can occur at various stages of the food supply chain, from production and processing to distribution, retail, and consumer levels.
Stop Food Waste Day was created in 2017 by the Compass Group. The Compass Group is one of the world’s largest food service companies that serves restaurants, cafes, hospitals, schools, and more. They are committed to reducing food waste, achieving climate net zero, and providing their customers with sustainable food choices. The Compass Group plans to reduce food waste by half within its global operations by 2030.
Additionally, the Compass Group created a digital cookbook for individuals to use. It includes recipes from all over the world for people to create meals which give a second life to ingredients that most commonly go to waste. It also provides users with tips to help stop food waste at home.
Food waste occurs for a variety of reasons all across the food chain. Some of these reasons include the weather, overproduction, lack of workers to harvest, poor planning, over buying and overpreparing. Food waste has several implications to the planet, including:
- The waste of resources needed for food production, such as water, energy, and land.
- The production of the greenhouse gas, methane caused by food waste being thrown into the landfill
- A loss of money spent on production, transportation, and other related costs.
- Ethical concerns from wasting food, especially among people experiencing food insecurity around the world.
Efforts to minimize food waste often involve better planning, improved storage practices, education on food labelling, and the development of technologies for food preservation and waste reduction throughout the supply chain.
Stop Food Waste Day draws attention to the problem of food waste and helps motivate and encourage people to change their behaviours and minimize food waste. Addressing food waste is crucial for creating a more sustainable and environmentally friendly food system.
How to celebrate:
- Educate yourself about best food practices
- Buy less
- Use food apps to purchase discounted food from grocery stores and restaurants.
- Learn about the use-by and best-by dates.
- Prevent food waste by storing food optimally, making use of every ingredient and planning meals ahead of time.
- Inspire others to waste less and repurpose more
- Redistribute unused food to your local community
- Discover near recipes that allow you to give a second life to ingredients or leftovers.
- Promote neighbourhood composting and compost at home
- Watch documentaries about food waste including Just Eat It, Wasted! The Story of Food Waste and Food Waste in America
Fun Facts:
- Food is the number 1 thing in America’s landfills.
- Almost half of all the fruits and vegetables produced are wasted, followed by meat and dairy.
- Produce is thrown away because they are too “ugly” to eat or sell. This amounts to 60 million tons of fruit and vegetables.
- Food with “use by” dates is highly perishable and must be eaten before the date written.
- Foods with “best before” dates can be eaten after the date on the packaging
- Wasting food is worse than total emissions from flying, plastic production and oil extraction.
- Throwing away one burger wastes the same amount of water as a 90-minute shower.
- If food loss were a country, it would be the third-largest greenhouse gas emitter behind China and the US.
Very interesting