Food Waste is the World’s Dumbest Problem
It’s a staggering figure, but about one-third of all food produced for human consumption around the world goes to waste. Modern developed countries are even more wasteful.
Just as we can strive to make our food production more friendly to the planet, we can also reduce the amount of food we throw out. That includes edible food that never reaches the shops, unsold or uneaten food in restaurants, or food we discard at home.
Globally, the impacts of food waste are astounding. It contributes greenhouse gas emissions, uses freshwater that we can ill afford to sacrifice, costs millions of farm animals their lives and accounts for billions of dollars’ worth of human labour, not to mention the vast forests cut down and wetlands drained to produce food that is never eaten, or the mountains of fertiliser and pesticides applied for no purpose.
While waste occurs throughout the food value chain in Australia, roughly two- thirds of food waste is generated in consumer-facing businesses (e.g. restaurants and retail outlets) or in the home. Most of us only have to look inside our fridge for proof.
But Green Growth 2050 is determined to reverse this trend. We aim to help businesses and to avoid and reduce food waste – for example through education and improved food safety standards and audits.
If you would like to learn more about Food Safety audits and its relationship to waste please contact us.
If you would like to to see what organisations like MIT are doing about it, check out this video
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