Those of you who regularly follow our blog will know that before Christmas we were closely following the BBC series ‘Hugh’s War on Waste’. During the show, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall campaigned to change the way we look at food and waste in general. As part of the show, Hugh appealed to the leading supermarkets to stop the unnecessary waste of food produce which does not conform to their aesthetic standards.
It is estimated that every year, approximately one third (2.9 trillion tonnes) of all food produced globally for human consumption ends up either lost or wasted. The statistics here in the UK also make for grim reading:
- On average 6.7 million tonnes of food is wasted each year – that means that approximately one third (32%) of all food purchased is never eaten.
- Of that 6.7 million tonnes, around 5.9 million tonnes (88%) is currently collected by local authorities through general waste collection.
- It is estimated that around 4.1 of this ‘waste’ could have been safely consumed by humans had it been better managed.
Tristram Stuart is an anti-food waste campaigner and has recently published a new book entitled ‘Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandalâ€. In it he argues:
“If food waste were a country, it would be the third largest producer of greenhouse gases in the world, after China and the U.S. On a planet of finite resources, with the expectation of at least two billion more residents by 2050, this profligacy is obscene.â€
To overcome this, Tristram is urging people to end the obsession with aesthetically perfect produce. Whilst your carrot, potato or tomato may be slightly smaller, larger or more irregular in shape than your supermarket would like – it is still perfectly fine to eat!