1/3 of Food Produced Globally is Lost or Wasted..Why?

Around one third of the food produced globally is lost or wasted. Food waste is a loss of other resources such as land, water, energy and labour, and in Europe it is estimated that households discard 25{b050ebef00e2b6e935b95b021e9f55f4ab20ffeed47f29e2aa25a2081fec5bc8} (by weight) of the food they purchase. They are however not the only culprits, as large quantities of food are discarded and wasted in manufacturing, retail and the food service business. Householders produce 42{b050ebef00e2b6e935b95b021e9f55f4ab20ffeed47f29e2aa25a2081fec5bc8} (nearly half) of all the food waste produced in Europe, equating to 180kg per person per annum. Manufacturers produce 39{b050ebef00e2b6e935b95b021e9f55f4ab20ffeed47f29e2aa25a2081fec5bc8} of Europe’s food waste and disard perfectly good food because it is misshapen, while the Food Service industry create 14{b050ebef00e2b6e935b95b021e9f55f4ab20ffeed47f29e2aa25a2081fec5bc8} of European food waste due primarily to given customers oversized portions. Reducing  food waste benefits everyone and it is estimated that it could save a quarter of total freshwater consumption globally, allow trees to be planted on lands currently used to grow surplus food offseting green house emissions by as much as 50-75{b050ebef00e2b6e935b95b021e9f55f4ab20ffeed47f29e2aa25a2081fec5bc8}, reduce global oil consumption by 300 million barrels with the reduction in the need for fertilsers, pesticides and fossil based resources and reduce EU emissions by 3{b050ebef00e2b6e935b95b021e9f55f4ab20ffeed47f29e2aa25a2081fec5bc8}. Not a bad set of outcomes….so continue to improve your waste segregation and work to make that brown bin redundant!