It seems that food waste is getting a bit more attention these days, and so I’ve decided to share information on Twitter and Facebook as I come across it, with the occasional round-up here. Some recent finds follow…
Consumers want it. Now is the time to act on food waste | Comment & Opinion | The Grocer – It’s nice to see that there’s some dialogue about food waste in the grocery industry.
Grocery Chain Figures Out How to Stop Wasting Food | Care2 Causes – If you make money selling food, it makes good business sense not to waste it. Stop & Shop has bucked traditional supermarket wisdom and made that discovery.
From Farm to Landfill – NYTimes.com – As we struggle to find ways to grow more and more food to feed more and more people, one obvious way to increase the food supply is often overlooked: waste less.
Chuck Newcomb: Avoid wasting food by buying what’s needed, storing it properly – A little common sense advice on how not to waste food.
222 million tons 
Thanks for these!!
I remember the shock when learning how much PERFECTLY GOOD FOOD gets tossed out the back door every day at our local grocer. It’s a lot, I tell you. A friend of mine dumpster-dived her local Wal-mart and came over with lots of perfectly fresh, good, FREE produce to split with me. I was tempted to do the same if nothing more than to do something with the terrible waste. My husband didn’t like the picture of his wife digging through a waste bin for “dinner.”
I’m certain grocers can do better. The 2nd article touches on that, but getting smaller (rather than bigger) may be the answer. I miss the small pantry stores of yesteryear. Going to Bubba and his “table” at the farm is a little closer to what I prefer for produce. If there’s anything that is about to be tossed, he tosses it instead into my bag for nothing. What’s on his table is what was picked that morning. At the end of the day, it may wind up feeding the livestock instead.
On “From Farm to Landfill,” have you read Omnivore’s Dilemma by M. Pollan yet? If not, I would recommend for some weekend reading. The root cause (of the economics of food abundance) is in there.
I read it a couple of years back, when I was still in Japan. It had a lot of great insights, and impacted the way I look at food in a big way.