Reducing Food Loss and Waste – An Essential

Reducing food loss is an imperative in today’s world – and not only because people effected by hunger has been slowly on the rise since 2014.

 Consider these figures:

• 14% of food produced is lost between harvest and retail

• An estimate 18% of the total food production world-wide is wasted – 11% at household level, 5% at food service, 2% retail level

Food loss and waste undermine the sustainability of our food system as well. When food is wasted you not only lose the food, you waste the resources used to create the food including water, land, energy, labour and capital, to mention a few.

Food loss in landfill also adds to the planets carbon footprint, contributing to climate change.

On a recent webinar a speaker (Suzee Brain – CEO Titanium Food) put forward the following acronym – which I thought was excellent - worth considering whether you are a restaurant, café (or householder):

R – reduce plate size of buffets / share plates

E – encourage customers to take home leftovers

D – donate to food charities

U – utilise more food parts eg. stalks of broccoli (no such thing as an ugly veg!)

C – compost

T – try your hand at pickling and fermenting

I – inventory management

O – offer customers choices for serving sizes / sides

N – note customer leftovers and rejig menu… or portion sizes

Good luck with your food loss actions.

For more information, please don’t hesitate to contact us via email hello@ourfootprint.com.au or call 0414 662 445.

You can also find loads of FREE information on our website Resources page at www.ourfootprint.com.au/resources