Half of all food is ‘wasted’ claims report

As much as half the world’s food, amounting to a whopping two billion tonnes worth, is being wasted, a UK report has claimed.

The Institution of Mechanical Engineers said the waste was caused by poor storage, strict sell-by dates, bulk offers and consumer fussiness.

The study also found that up to 30% of vegetables in the UK were not harvested because of their physical appearance.

This is pretty shocking stuff, particularly when you consider the amount of people in the world who go days or even weeks without food.

As previously mentioned there are several reasons for this and it sounds like most of them could be solved by customers and suppliers being less fussy and only buying what you actually need.

Of all the crops that are grown and harvested every year of course some batches are going to look a little less appealing but that’s no excuse not to sell them and it certainly isn’t an excuse not to buy them, it’s not like they’re going to taste any different when cooked.  

If supermarkets are worried that customers won’t buy a wonky carrot then drop the price of it by 10% and see how many are wasted then.

Common sense is also a big factor particularly with regards to sell-by dates, supermarkets are so over cautious with them particularly on products like cheese that say on the pack slowly matured for 20 years and right next to it is the phrase please consume within two days of opening.

Mind you this isn’t all entirely the supermarkets fault as there is always one dippy so and so who will eat something even if it’s encased in mould because it’s still a day before the sell-by date, and will end up suing the supermarket even though their illness was caused by their own ineptitude.          

This food wastage problem certainly seems to be a very modern thing, if you take maybe not so much your parents but definitely your grandparents there is always a look of trepidation on their face whenever they have to throw any item of food away even if it’s got a colony of maggots populating it.

So while these statistics are pretty shocking, all it would take is some common sense and a little less fussiness from the consumers and suppliers and this percentage should shrink right down.