How positive behaviour can make a real difference in reducing food waste

If someone were to offer you €1,000 a year for nothing, you’d snatch their hand off. Instead you’re likely putting your hand in your pocket and throwing the same amount away.

According to MyWaste.ie, the Government's waste management website, households in Ireland bin between €400 and €1,000 of food annually.

It is costing us more than money. “Food waste sent to landfill does not harmlessly break down but instead releases methane, a greenhouse gas 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide,” it says.

The best way to avoid it is to be careful what you buy in the first place. Choose only what you need and don’t be tempted by special offers on perishable foods.

Waste industry research indicates that 60 per cent of food waste is completely avoidable, such as leftovers from our meals, fruit and veg that have gone off or perishables beyond their consumption date. Smarter shopping and smaller portions would eliminate that.

Stop Food Waste, a programme funded by the Environmental Protection Agency, works with householders to address the issue head-on.

Its “How to Survive the Shopping Battleground” infographic helps people to avoid the things supermarkets do to get us to buy more, from supersized trollies to the sweet smell of bakeries.

But supermarkets are working to eliminate food waste too. Lidl, for example, has introduced a section where chilled foods within their best before date, but beyond the store's internal "customer date", are put in a special section and sold at a 90 per cent discount.

Ensuring good food doesn't go to waste is the driver behind innovative social enterprise Food Cloud too, which works with supermarkets such as Lidl, Musgrave, Aldi and Tesco, to ensure that all excess produce finds a home.

It uses technology to link partner stores with local charities who use excess stock for everything from breakfast clubs to homeless hostels and family support services.

FoodCloud’s work goes right back up the supply chain to primary producers. One of its more recent innovation has been the reintroduction of an ancient practice – gleaning.

Since 2017 Food Cloud has been sending teams of gleaners into fields after they have been harvested, to pick up any produce left behind, typically because they are a little smaller. It’s something Lidl does as part of its corporate social responsibility programmes, explains Owen Keogh, the supermarket’s head of CSR.

A team of its staff recently volunteered to work with suppliers, going into fields after the tractors have left and saving potatoes and onions.

It’s hard work that Keogh, who comes from a farming background, likens to the worst job on the farm – “picking stones”. But the pay-off is worth it.

“The team went in this year and collected two tonnes of red onions, which we were able to donate to Food Cloud directly,” he says.

To date Lidl has redistributed two million meals through Food Cloud. “Earlier this year we partnered with Food Cloud and other food retailers in Ireland for the first time to launch a national food appeal to tackle shortages due to Covid-19. Though this initiative we donated more than €50,000 worth of non-surplus stock to Food Cloud,” says Keogh.

Food waste reduction

Supermarkets are helping in other ways too with, for example, Musgrave sharing food waste reduction guidelines with the more than 1,400 independent retail partners who operate its SuperValu, Centra and Daybreak stores. Tesco Ireland is working with fresh food suppliers to address food waste within their own operations.

Consumer interest is growing too. To coincide with the UN’s International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste in September, the EPA published the findings of a nationwide survey.

It found that food waste is the second most concerning issue around food here, after price.

The survey shows people have a strong sense of their role in preventing food waste and that they expect retailers, restaurants and manufacturers to act too.

“Irish households produce over 250,000 tonnes of food waste per year,” says Mary Frances Rochford, Programme Manager in the Office of Environmental Sustainability.

“In addition, food waste is a significant contributor to climate change – generating about 8 to 10 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Reducing food waste reduces our greenhouse gas emissions and also reduces bills for householders and businesses.”

Ambitious targets have been set in the new National Waste Policy for food waste reduction, with the aim of halving food waste by 2030. “Meeting these targets will require a strong response from every step along the food chain,” she says.

One step that would help consumers is greater promotion of the difference between “use by” and “best before” dates.

A use-by date is about safety and the need, for health reasons, to avoid eating food that goes off quickly, such as meat or ready-to-eat salads. For the food to even last that long, it must be stored in the right conditions, usually chilled.

Best-before dates on the other hand are about quality, not safety. It means something is fine to eat, just not at its best. The flavour or texture might not be up to scratch.

Simply knowing that could help reduce food waste too, as the survey found that a product’s having reached its best-before date is one of the main reasons it is thrown out.

There are some positive indicators. Despite the panic buying in the early days of the pandemic, the survey found that during the first lockdown people adopted behaviours that actually reduced food waste. That frantic period saw a 12 per cent increase in people doing a single weekly shop, and a 10 per cent increase in people drawing up meal plans.

The result was that 29 per cent of people ended up throwing away less food compared to before the lockdown period. It shows how a few positive behaviours can make a real difference. The solution is in our own hands.