Waste Not Want Not
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Hagen Friend
Contents
Food Waste 8 Causes 15
World War Food Waste
Production Food Processing Retail & Consumerism
Extent 23
Food Waste in the UK
Prevention 27
Freeganism 30
What is it
An Interview 39
Skipchen
One Man’s Trash...
Food Waste
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Food waste or food loss is food that is discarded or cannot be used. The causes of food waste or loss are numerous, and occur at the stages of production, processing, retailing and consumption. As of 2013, half of all food is wasted worldwide, according to the British Institution of Mechanical Engineers. Loss and wastage occurs at all stages of the food supply chain or value chain. In low-income countries, most loss occurs during production, while in developed countries much food – about 100 kilograms per person per year – is wasted at the consumption stage.
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World War Food Waste
Food waste was identified as a problem in the UK as early as World War I. Combating food waste was one of the initial goals of the Women’s Institutes set up in 1915. Rationing was adopted during World War I, although it was voluntary. It was only between December 1917 and February 1918 that rationing began, in stages, to be made compulsory. Apparently fines were imposed on either individuals or businesses for wasting food. 10
During World War II, rationing was imposed almost immediately. Restrictions were immediately more stringent than in the Great War as with effect from 8 January 1940 ration books were issued and most foods were subject to ration. By August 1940, legislation was passed that made the wasting of food a prisonable offence.
Many of the methods suggested by current campaigns to prevent food waste like ‘Love Food Hate Waste’ have taken inspiration from those of World War II.
BUY WISELY COOK CAREFULLY EAT IT ALL 11
“Eat your food! There are starving children in the world!� 12
More than once have we heard, “Eat your food! There are starving children in the world!” Either directed towards us or someone with us. When the word “food waste” is brought up, the former scenario is one of the most common ones to come into mind— not finishing what is on our plate. However, the process of food waste is an intricate system starting from food’s harvest through its journey to multiple processing factories and finally to local supermarkets where it is made available to the consumer. And, unfortunately, food is lost in every step. Its arrival at the supermarket is not the end of food waste. When food does reach supermarket shelves, the rate of waste spirals up.
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Causes
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Production
In developing and developed countries which operate either commercial or industrial agriculture, food waste can occur at most stages of the food industry and in significant amounts.
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From planting, crops can be subjected to pest infestations and severe weather, which cause losses before harvest. Since natural forces remain the primary drivers of crop growth, losses from these can be experienced by all forms of outdoor agriculture. The use of machinery in harvesting can cause waste, as harvesters may be unable to discern between ripe and immature crops, or collect only part of a crop. Economic factors, such as regulations and standards for quality and appearance, also cause food waste; farmers often harvest selectively, preferring to leave crops not to standard in the field (where they can be used as fertiliser or animal feed), since they would otherwise be discarded later.
Food Processing
Food waste continues in the postharvest stage, but the amounts of post-harvest loss involved are relatively unknown and difficult to estimate, but these are some of the key factors as to why we waste food during the post-harvest stage, this mainly happens in countries like the UK and USA. Over-sorting and over-grading on the farm and in the packinghouse based on strict guidelines that have more to do with appearance (colour, size, shape) than nutritional value or eating quality, leading to higher discards of edible foods. Poor choice of packages and packaging materials, with focus on cosmetic features rather than on strength, cleanliness, ventilation, moisture control, etc., which would help extend shelf life
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Retail & Consumerism
What’s the difference between food loss and food waste? Waste occurs toward the back end of the food chain, at the retail and consumer level. In general, the richer the nation, the higher its per capita rate of waste. Loss, on the other hand, mostly occurs at the front of the food chain-during production, postharvest, and processing.
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Retail stores can throw away large quantities of food. Usually, this consists of items that have reached either their best before, sell-by or use-by dates. Food that passed the best before, and sell-by date, and even some food that passed the use-by date is still edible at the time of disposal. Some stores actually put effort into preventing access to poor or homeless people. Retailers contribute to waste as a result of their contractual arrangements with suppliers. Failure to supply agreed quantities renders farmers or processors liable to have their contracts cancelled. As a consequence, they plan to produce more than actually required to meet the contract, to have a margin of error. Surplus production is often simply disposed of.
Extent
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Food Waste in the UK 6.7 million
tonnes of food is wasted by UK households every year
It is estimated that food wasted by Europe and the USA could feed the world 3 times over
30.8%
of all food purchased in the UK is thrown away
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How much is it costing the UK
The UK pays for
£10.2 billion
of good food but doesn’t eat it
£420
70kg
how much it costs each household per year
the amount each person throws away each year
Unopened foods
1.2 million tonnes of food is thrown away in it’s packaging
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Prevention
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To reduce the food waste produced (often unintentionally or unavoidably, due to lifestyle) by consumers, advisory campaigns and articles have put forward varying advice and suggestions. The following strategies: planning before food shopping, understanding food date labels and using leftovers in other meals, are universally agreed to be effective in preventing food waste.
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So much food is wasted or lost in the process of farming, manufacturing to the retail stage of food, and it is at the retail stage that people can make a difference. People are put off by the use-by date but according to the USDA “‘Use-by dates’ usually refer to best quality and are not safety dates. But even if the date expires during home storage, a product should be safe, whole, and of good quality if handled properly and kept at 40°F or below.”
15.1% of household food is being thrown away because it’s “GONE OFF” 29
Freeganism
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What it is Freeganism or skip diving, is the practice of reclaiming and eating food that has been discarded. Freegans and freeganism are often seen as part of a wider “anti-consumerist” ideology, and freegans often employ a range of alternative living strategies based on limited participation in the conventional economy and minimal consumption of resources. The word “freegan” is a coinage derived from “free” and “vegan”. Freeganism started in the mid-1990s, out of the antiglobalisation and environmentalist movements.
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Anti-consumerism
Freeganism is based on the idea of anti-consumerism and that there is little need to purchase new goods because of the waste that society has produced and because they want to help the environment. The writings of sociologist and anthropologist Marcel Mauss inspire many values of freeganism. Mauss studied the relationship between forms of exchange and the social culture. Not only do freegans use their finds for personal use, they also share their items and use them for free distribution. They believe that the general public greatly misuses resources because of the ideals and activities of mass consumerism and do not want to contribute to the consumerist society.
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One Man’s Trash... One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. The phrase perfectly iterates the perspective of freegans. Skip diving is the activity of recovering food and supplies from unwanted rubbish. Prior to their recognition, skip divers were most commonly those living on the street resorting to rubbish because they had nothing to eat. Seen this way, divers would be stereotyped as lazy parasites, feeding off the secondhand goods of the working class. However, skip dining is not a savage or classless style for the people who are unwilling to spend money, but a clever and intricate system that challenges the ethics of large food production companies and people’s incessant habit to waste food. As mentioned, a majority of food is unopened and thrown out because
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it has passed its expiration date. For example when presented with an unopened box of crackers from the rubbish and the same box of crackers from my cupboard that expired a day ago, which would you be more likely to eat? Most people are likely to choose the second scenario. The framing or presentation of something greatly influences people’s perception. The first box of crackers was retrieved from the supermarket’s skip and thrown out because it had passed its expiration date. Although the box was unopened, simply “being” in the skip creates the feeling that it is no longer pure. In reality, the quality of the two products are the same, both are past their expiration date so should taste the same.
Divers would be stereotyped as lazy parasites 35
others cannot look past its violation Skip divers are able to look past the former illusion. By being insusceptible to the Framing Effect, they take full advantage of the supermarket’s wasteful behavior. Skip diving is done not only to reduce waste by companies but also to decrease demand for industrial practice. Targeting large supermarkets that carry more industrialised products, skip diving is a form of protest. By refusing to buy their products, companies lose money as unsold food is sent straight to the skip where divers can obtain them for free and avoid creating a demand for them. While some see skip diving as efficient and useful in decreasing food waste, others cannot look past its violation
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An Interview
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Skipchen I had a one to one interview with Sam Joseph who has himself lived on food taken from skips for the past three years and is the Cafe Manager for Skipchen in Bristol, Stokes Croft serving food past its sell-by date taken from supermarket skips and restaurants. Skipchen is being run as a not-for-profit cafe in by campaigners highlighting the amount of edible food that is thrown away.
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Where do you get your food from? What supermarkets? We get are food from all sorts of places, farms, food that is made waste because its the wrong shape, redistribution charities, the bulk of food is coming from a homeless shelter in Brislington, spice factory. Supermarkets, we get food that they can’t actually use. Today we got a phone call saying we have 20 crates of veg for you. They don’t know what to do with it. We’re always in stock, never struggling, having to turn food down sometimes as there is so much food, having to redistribute food to other companies so it can be used properly. Supermarkets trying to put people off, by putting yogurt all over the skip food, they used to put bleach on everything but it is now illegal, but supermarkets did use it to colour the food. You know, Food is too cheap, making food more expensive will make less waste food, it would effect its true value.
Food is too cheap, making food more expensive will make less waste food 41
What variety of people do you get here? A real mix of people. People on their lunch break from working in the office from down the road, homeless people, lots of students, loads of older people - during the wars this was completely normal, they used to have government campaigns promoting similar things to what we’re doing here, it was illegal to waste food, food scraps legally had to be fed to livestock if they weren’t fed to humans. This is so normal. Nowadays these people are alienated in how the way we live.
“I’d rather sit there and suck my own dick” 42
Do you know other people that find this sort of thing taboo? Hahaa, definitely. On the bristol post, someone commented about Skipchen “I’d rather sit there and suck my own dick” There’s this huge fear around out of date food and food safety, this great belief in these little dates that are printed on food, because theres a disconnection with the food that we eat. Usually these scared people don’t understand the whole food thing, how it’s produced etc, and won’t come here to try it out. I’ve heard from other people “so you coming down to Skipchen” some people in the group respond with “oh nah nah, I wouldn’t go down there” People having to address these fears and make it less of a taboo subject, because people are wasting this food. It’s a critique of capitalism and saying capitalism isn’t working, because we’re wasting 15 million tons of food a year. We have to have money, we have to have these things, and we can’t just give food away.
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