In the fight for global sustainability and resource conservation – and indeed the fight against climate change – deforestation, fossil fuels and water management are often at the forefront of local and national policy debates. Little attention is paid to the troubling global food waste trend, or the shocking 160 billion pounds of food waste that Americans toss each year, or how that accumulated waste impacts our already flailing ecosystem.
In his book American Wasteland, Jonathan Bloom argues that from overharvesting to aesthetic selectivity, the industrialized food chain — for all of its benefits — is a system that creates more hunger and environmental damage than it solves. From dump trucks full of mislabeled lettuce being carelessly tossed into over-capacity landfills, to overweight haulers forced to ditch extra bulk at weigh stations, there are more than just a few unforgivable missteps in the modern food industry.
Justin Rltchle / flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Vancouver, WA
While America may not be in danger of running out of food completely, there is no denying that as the Bread Bowl of the Midwest suffers from extreme drought and topsoil depletion, there is more and more pressure on the food industry to modify natural growing patterns to coax unsustainable amounts of crop production out of increasingly malnourished terrain. 160 billion pounds of food waste is one estimation, from food waste expert Jonathan Bloom (@WastedFood)The real tragedy, however, lies in the irony of one of the most horrifying and preventable sets of hunger statistics in America: despite the struggles of the Midwest to meet food demands and an estimated 15 percent of Americans struggling with food insecurity on a daily basis, a horrifying 30 to 40 percent of the food that is produced in America is thrown away unnecessarily before it even has the chance to be touched by those who need it most.
When it comes to poverty in the U.S., the real numbers are much worse than federal poverty statistics indicate when real-world factors are considered, as seen in an independent case study from the Boston Indicators Project.
That means the non-renewable resources used to grow that same food — water, topsoil, fuel, manpower — are then wasted as well. In fact, food production alone accounts for 80 percent of freshwater use, 33 percent of human-made greenhouse gasses and 50 percent of all land use, making food waste one of the most urgent socio-environmental challenges of our time.
The greatest paradox of the 21st century lies in the fact that about 12 percent [sic] of the world population suffers from starvation in a world of plenty, where over 2 billion adults suffer from obesity. Food waste is very much tied to this paradox and the social, economic and environmental impacts it has on food distribution will greatly affect the future development of the entire planet.
-UrbanTimes
The Environmental Protection Agency is just now realizing how detrimental to the environment and economic cycle food waste is, launching a food recovery project to educate Americans on best practices and reasons to curb food waste on a national and global level. According to the EPA, 96 percent of the food Americans squander winds up in a landfill; in 2011 alone, we as a country landfilled more than 36 million tons of food waste, which breaks down to produce methane, a toxic greenhouse gas.
In fact, overall global awareness of the food waste trend is growing, but the knowledge has yet to trickle down to the consumer level, which is why the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) recently released its most comprehensive food waste study ever. Among the findings: 54 percent of food waste occurs during production, handling and storage; 46 percent occurs during processing, distribution and consumption. Arguably, the consumer level is the most important, simply because it is widespread buying habits and demand of the average American household that drive corporate policies.
The annual carbon footprint of global food wastage is the equivalent of 3.3 billion tons of CO2 emissions, according to the most recent FAO report.
This means that as food waste continues to be a growing issue across the grower, retailer and consumer levels, it’s important to understand which companies and industry leaders, both historical and present day, are taking steps to combat (or reinforce) the issue, as well as what the average consumer can do to decrease the environmental impact of national food waste on an individual level. We’ve dug into four different food movements — ugly food, school food recovery, mandated composting and community feeding programs — that can show the power of involvement and what the average consumer can do to reduce, reuse and eliminate food waste altogether.
Movement 1: The Ugly Food Movement (2014)
In the modern world, it’s tough to be just an average apple. Chances are, no matter how sweet you are on the inside, how ripe and ready to be packed into a school child’s lunchbox, odds are you’ll never make it to the towering pyramid of Fujis and Galas gracing the supermarket center.
No, if you’re not passed up by stingy hands in the orchard, you’re bounced around and bruised in the produce truck or mislabeled and left to rot in a landfill. If you’re not guilty of the greatest sin in humble apple-dom, which is to hang elegantly from a tree with a single, solitary wormhole gracing your cheek — or worse, to grow with a slightly mottled skin tone — you’ll be tossed into the rubbish compactor during the daily culling process of in-store grocery quality experts after being shuffled and picked over by aesthetic-minded shoppers.
No, odds are not ever in your favor if you’re the average (or ugly) apple. Welcome to the real-world version of The Hunger Games. And it’s brutal.
That’s why in 2014, the French supermarket Intermarche launched a groundbreaking food campaign and brand platform called “Inglorious.” The premise? Selling the red-headed stepchildren of the average produce aisle for 30 percent less than their more photogenic counterparts.
Intermarche
In Europe, ugly sells. Is a food revolution in the works?
While U.S. retailers typically cater to the aesthetically-minded consumer with perfectly round apples and politely curved bananas, as part of the European Union’s established “Year Against Food Waste,” Intermarche supermarket in Provins, France purchased and began selling the misshapen and rejected fruits of local labor, marketing the produce with snappy Apple-like minimalism (pun-intended) that showcased the produce’s inner beauty, if you will. As a result, NPR reported, Intermarche’s foot traffic rose an incredible 24 percent, sparking a chain-wide program adoption and a countercultural rise in similar strategies across Intermarche’s competitors.
But why the sudden interest in ugly fruits and veggies? And where does the U.S. stand on the movement?
While the general consensus is that around 40 percent of U.S. food is thrown away before it has the chance to be sold or eaten, specific numbers vary depending on individual definitions of “waste” versus “loss.” This can include selective practices by farmers — who may only pick at a prime point of ripeness in order to ensure the produce stays fresh during transport, leaving remaining produce to rot — but it also includes retail warehouses that reject quality produce from farmers based on appearance alone, catering to the American shopper that is particularly concerned with the surface beauty of an apple, as opposed to its quality. Even pre-packaged, deli-style items and single serve produce in supermarkets contribute to the issue, which in many stores, may be thrown away at the end of the day if unsold to maintain individual quality standards.
In addition, expiration and best buy dates often lead traditional shoppers to pass up perfectly edible food, despite the great deal of ambiguity surrounding expiration dates, which despite their usage by retailers to determine freshness and quality, are in fact unregulated and determined on an individual basis, rather than indicative of freshness or quality.
The NRDC labels the misleading food dating system as a “missed opportunity” for consumers, retailers and manufacturers.
Furthermore, the issue can start even before the produce is picked — such as when farmers can’t afford to harvest their crops due to market pricing and the inability to make up what they would lose in labor and production costs.
Combined, these selective practices translate into roughly $165 billion in total food waste each year, according to NPR.
But while Europe is making strides to decrease unnecessary food waste across the board, the U.S. is still measurably behind, even with Farmer’s Markets (which aren’t necessarily required to adhere to USDA standards) hitting a peak in 2014, a 180 percent increase from 2006.
The EU recently modified its marketing standards for produce, a document which establishes “sound, fair and of marketable quality” regulations for produce trade, by dropping the list of applicable fruit and vegetable items from 36 to 10 and revising laughable conformity specifics to be more flexible, but still undeniably strict. For example, under current EU standards, a banana has to be “free from malformation or abnormal curvature,” and likewise, the crown (where the bananas are bunched together) must be “cleanly cut… not beveled or torn, with no stalk fragments.”
But are the beauty standards for produce unreasonable? Should something as simple as a banana bunch truly be discarded because its crown isn’t “clean cut,” a factor which neither determines produce quality nor longevity, but is in fact a natural outcome of harvesting?
Is age-defying GMO fruit the newest trend to combat aesthetic non-appeal? It is, according to science… and the USDA.
In the U.S., USDA standards are even more strict than those abroad, and far more wasteful, simply because Americans are immersed in a culture of instant gratification and abundance. Collectively, we rally against small portions when dining and have set our shopping expectations to unreasonable levels — apple bins should be overflowing and banana displays should feature numbers in the thousands of all varying levels of ripeness, not only so we can select the best specimens, but to give the overall illusion of choice. The unlucky and unchosen go straight into the dumpster.
Chart via The Washington Post, with FAO data
Of the 1.2 trillion tons of food grown and purchased by Americans, an estimated 33 to45 percent of that food gets tossed into landfills.
These national produce standards are available to the public and sorted based on commodity, as well as usage. However, for fresh produce, even a basic apple is graded on a scale ranging from “extra fancy” to “utility,” and is expected to be far more fit, unblemished and of even complexion than the average swimsuit model. Uniformity, here, is key.
Unfortunately, there are no accurate measures for just how much the average grocer tosses per day, however, several employees at one Boise-based grocery chain stated that the timeline of food rotation is automated during daily inventory scans, but that they always err on the side of caution with respect to best buy dates by tossing food approximately three days before the already generous printed date.
Unfortunately, there are no foreseeable plans for American retailers to offer “ugly fruit” sections like those in Europe, particularly due to chain store regulations, which leave little room for local flexibility in marketing, as well as fear of repercussions in shopper preferences. However, on an international scale, the produce market is slowly starting to become more receptive to the idea; Canadian retailer Loblaw recently launched its “Naturally Imperfect” brand, while Australian retailers such as Woolworth’s are slowly expanding the concept of “odd bunch” produce.
But even if markets are not ready to embrace the idea of selling “ugly” or inferior quality produce, couldn’t extra store inventory and mislabeled cartons of all types simply be donated to charity? To after school programs? To military families?
Yes, but only in accordance with the Good Samaritan Food Donation Act.
Despite having conquered many of the problems that lead to food wastage in third-world countries, such as pests and inefficient storage or transportation methods, food waste numbers are shockingly even across the globe, though occurring at different points along the food chain.
The struggle, then, is multi-fold. First, to dramatically change the consumer mindset that emphasizes appearances over interior quality. Second, to directly promote growing and inventory practices that are based solely on consumer demand, and avoid the waste that comes from outdated or unsold backstock. Third, to change the additional consumer mindset that encourages bulk shopping, adherence to inaccurate “best by” dates and food waste based on personal preferences and instead to buy only what we need.
The Benefits: Less waste, plain and simple.
Movement 2: “Clean Your Plate” and School Garden Campaigns (1917-1947)
Taking the “Liberty Gardens” of WWI and the “Victory Gardens” of WWII even further, 1947 saw the launch of America’s “Clean Your Plate Club,” which encouraged families to grow, can and preserve their own food in order to avoid food imports as much as possible.
Heading the initiative was President Harry S. Truman, whose aim was to combat food scarcity on the home front with the club’s dual patriotic and waste-reducing message: by Americans at home consuming less, the CYPC ensured a reserve of natural resources and manpower for war efforts instead. The campaign boasted slogans like “Serve Your Country – Lick Your Plate Clean” and “Plant a Garden, Grow Freedom” among others, which aligned closely with the United States School Garden Army (USSGA) initiatives that began in 1918. Between the two, domestic-grown food and food conservation became the norm in an unprecedented government effort to make agricultural education a formal part of the public school curriculum.
Developed in part by President Woodrow Wilson, the official USSGA manual encouraged schools to develop student-run gardens and incorporate food education, science and resource management into a formal, hands-on curriculum. Wilson also encouraged students to plant gardens around their community and share the harvest with others.
By 1947, 44 percent of the country’s food was coming straight from the home, according to Rose Hayden-Smith’s book Sowing the Seeds of Victory.
Local food and small family agriculture in the Treasure Valley has hit a sharp decline. Imported food now makes up 98 percent of what the valley consumes, and with that statistic comes an increase in food waste as well.
But while the campaigns of Truman and Wilson were particularly aimed at young schoolchildren to encourage less finicky eating and resulting food waste, as well as increased food production and conservation in a difficult economy, the overall message was one that a garbage-happy modern culture would do well to abide by. Particularly with regards to waste in the school lunchroom, which nation-wide contributes approximately $1 billion to the food waste total, schools that actively target this growing statistic are few and far between.
Only a handful of elementary schools nationwide offer donation or food recovery areas for unwanted milk cartons, produce or packaged items, even though there are students whose economic standing would benefit from the extra nutrients, or for whom the ability to take home a few extra apples could make all the difference in terms of domestic food security. Even fewer schools educate students on the topics of food waste and conservation, or encourage their students to only take what they will eat.
Let’s Move/ Joanna Zhang
First Lady Michelle Obama has endeavored to improve the quality of national school lunches with her Let’s Move campaign, however, those measures do little if any good if the majority of that healthy food is tossed into the trash.
Instead, the average cafeteria creates pre-made lunch bags with items students will inevitably toss due to personal preferences, rather than ala carté “Offer vs. Serve” options. Addressing these key food recovery and food wastage opportunities via education and school awareness initiatives like the USSGA program could be key to raising a new, more conscientious consumer generation.
The Benefits: Since research has shown that the average adult finishes 92 percent of what is put on his or her plate (which can lead to a bevy of other issues on the topic of obesity), while children only finish 60 percent of what they are served, this inefficiency and education gap leads to a gross increase in domestic waste for households with children, and huge waste costs in schools.
Better portion control and food recovery education might be a smart move for more local schools and homes alike to adopt, especially if we want to decrease the amount of unnecessary food waste that goes into local landfills. Additionally, school garden and composting measures have the potential to provide children with valuable resource management life skills, as well as create a sense of accountability and ownership over what goes onto their plates, in order to reduce waste over the long-term.
Posters below from the WWI-era Clean Your Plate Club:
Movement 3: Mandatory Composting (2014)
In 2012, Americans tossed 20 percent more food into the trash than they did in 2000, and 50 percent more than they did in 1990. In fact, the Washington Post claims that Americans waste more food than they do paper, plastic, glass or metal.
But a few select, forward-thinking cities have taken steps to combat this downhill trend by enforcing mandatory composting initiatives for businesses and homeowners alike.
Jacob Corey
At a Florida City Walmart, returned food items are often tossed into company dumpsters, per policy.
In 2014, Seattle, Wash., launched an initiative that requires all municipal refuse to be at least 90 percent food-scrap free. The measures, which will go into full effect this summer, are projected by Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) to divert approximately 38,000 tons of food waste from the local landfill, which is currently based in Oregon. The initiatives also align closely with the success of Seattle’s current recycling and yard waste mandates, which ban paper, glass and cans from being tossed in the garbage. The SPU’s goal is to recycle 60 percent of waste by the end of 2015.
Until the measures take effect, violators will merely receive a warning. But once enforcement of the ordinances goes “live,” businesses and households could face a $1 or $50 fine and penalties of the Seattle municipal code, with an additional public notice placed on their recycling container. Public receptacles are exempt from the codes.
epSos.de / flickr (CC BY 2.0)
A new bin has been added to the trifecta of paper, plastic, and cans
The Benefits: The measures in Seattle follow similar programs in areas like San Francisco and Massachusetts. But since food rotting in landfills produces over 25 percent of methane emissions, according to the NRDC, more nationwide adoption of similar composting initiatives would alleviate methane pollution, which is three times more toxic than carbon dioxide. San Francisco diverts approximately 72 percent of its trash from the landfill as a part of its Zero Waste policy, which started in 2009. As aptly stated by the Washington Post, “The level of food waste suggests that curbing hunger isn’t a matter of producing more food so much as better preserving and distributing the food currently being produced.” In fact, there is easily enough food produced annually to feed every person in the world — all 7 billion of us.
Yet, we don’t.
Even more unfortunately, the jobs created via recycling initiatives are a major economic benefit that are being overlooked on a national scale, despite their ability to address the interrelated problems of nationwide food insecurity and food waste.
The average American’s attitude on the environment? Not as important as affluence, according to a National Geographic survey.
In Idaho, as a state ranked eighth in the nation in terms of our “green” standing simply because of our renewable energy sources and prominent bicycling community, recycling and environmental safety measures should be foremost on our agenda if we’re to continue to protect those natural resources.
Movement 4: Feeding the 5000 (2009)
While progressive organizations like Zero Percent and FallingFruit.org try to revive the well-established food bank system by using technology to increase food donations and recovery, monolith operations like Feeding the 5000, a U.K. startup, are trying to educate consumers instead, doing their part with a feast of Biblical proportions.
As a highly organized food recovery and education event, Feeding the 5K aims to not just feed the populace for a day, but teach them to fish, as the old saying goes.
Feeding the 5K
A mountain of recovered fruits and vegetables will become a massive community feast for 5000 at a 5K event in Brussels.
Featuring a communal banquet prepared entirely from recovered food that would have otherwise gone to waste, Feeding the 5K also incorporates a day-long series of informational seminars on several topics: the food waste epidemic, how to make the most out of a food budgets and leftover food, how to properly compost and dispose of organic waste in the home.
The Benefits: With the goal of inspiring food initiatives and legislation across the globe, Feeding the 5000 events “champion… delicious solutions and catalyze the global movement against food waste” by bringing together the people and organizations in one huge, localized festival. This past year, the first American 5K event was held in Oakland, California, partnering with sustainable organizations throughout the U.S., like EndFoodWaste.org, Sustainable America/IValueFood, NRDC and GlobalGreen.org.
With future-driven goals meant to inspire long-term change, events like Feeding the 5K could be just the movement more local populations need to jumpstart sustainable planning and food waste initiatives across the state’s hungry population. In addition to initiating a much-needed conversation on the topics of protecting farmers and natural resources, and stimulating the economy, a 5K event has the potential to educate adults on a mass scale, which is where the greatest challenge to the food sustainability movement arises.
Starting a New Movement
There is an ancient Hindu saying that goes, “Annam parabrahma swaroopam,” which translates, “Food is Lord Almighty.”
To a country with over 21 percent of its population living in hunger, that means to waste food is quite literally sacrilege — in fact, the Global Hunger Index ranks India at position 66 out of 88 of the world’s most “food insecure” countries, with a shocking 210 million people going hungry on a daily basis, according to the Times of India.
The entire population of the U.S. is only estimated at 320 million.
By comparison, Feeding America and the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare report that under the Supplemental Poverty Measure, there are approximately 49.7 million living in poverty in the U.S., which is nearly 3 million more than are represented by the official poverty measure of 47 million, bringing the total to just shy of 16 percent of the U.S. population (and 13 percent of Idahoans).
While any one food movement is not nearly enough to make a dent in the global food waste issue or its consequences, education and activism could encourage people to rethink and reduce our collective wasteful behaviors, as well as to respect and value our food beyond its function as a commodity.
Rather, food is a resource needing to be protected and repurposed just like any other recyclable, with its waste managed responsibly, as well as managed proactively before it occurs. Only by promoting ethical and sustainable practices will we truly be able to tackle the issue at its source and address the high energy consumption, environmental and public health risks and human concerns that make food waste much more than a financial concern. It is really a question of survival.
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