Food Waste 101: Who’s Wasting The Most Food?

There are many steps in the food waste chain. It’s not as simple as playing the blame game on one single source. We have a lot of slack to pick up! All we have to do is start making little changes in our lives. 

Who’s ready to dive in? Let’s go! 

Let’s start by categorizing the ways we waste food. A common mistake that is overlooked is the difference between food waste and food loss. Oftentimes the two terms are categorized as the same thing. When in fact, the two have important differences to identify. 

Food Loss-what is it? 

Food loss is defined as any edible food that goes uneaten at any stage. Food loss is the bigger category at hand. Some examples include: crops left in the fields, food that spoils in transportation, and all other food that doesn’t quite make it to the store. Unfortunately, some amount of food is lost at nearly every step of the way. 

Food Waste-what is it? 

Food waste is defined as food discarded by retailers due to color or appearance, as well as plate-waste by consumers. Some examples include: any unsold ingredients from restaurants & grocery stores thrown out at expiration, leftovers you never finished before they went bad, and the half-plate of food you couldn't finish at breakfast. 

Now that we are well acquainted with the difference, let’s shift back to our focus for today’s lesson; food waste. Introducing: The Food Waste Chain! 

As you can see, there are 4 main touch points when it comes to the Food Waste Chain:

1. Production (Farms, Fishing Boats) 

2. Processing and Manufacturing (Factories, Transportation) 

3. Retail & Food Services (Restaurants, Grocery Stores) 

4. Consumer (That’s you and me) 

So, how does food get wasted? 

Here are the main 7 factors that lead to food waste! 

1. Bad weather (production-farms)

2. Processing issues (processing-factories) 

3. Overproduction (production-farms) 

4. Unstable markets (production and processing) 

5. Over buying (retail & food services, consumers) 

6. Poor planning (retail & food services, consumers) 

7. Safety & Label Confusion (consumers) 

Now, if you weren’t already concerned...let’s taco bout the facts! 

Food waste costs the US $218 billion/year! 
Imagine how many students we could send to college for this price! 

Food waste puts a heavy strain on our environment when we waste valuable resources like water and farm land. 

If you were wondering why your water bill is so expensive, find out how much of your state’s water goes to industrial agriculture. 80 percent of the water used in California flows into the state's multi-billion-dollar agricultural sector, with just 20 percent left for urban use split between homes, businesses, and government! 

Uneaten food is the single largest component of municipal solid waste. As the food sits in the landfill, it breaks down to form methane-a greenhouse gas that is 86 times more powerful than Carbon Dioxide. 

You wanna talk about climate change? We’ve got tons of food breaking down into methane, which is 86 times more powerful than the exhaust coming out of your car. And it’s happening all over the world. 

12% of American households are food insecure. 

In the wealthiest country in the world, 1 in every 8 people don’t know where their next meal will come from.

If we can reduce our country’s overall food waste by 15%, 25 million people could be fed annually. 

Small changes = Big impact 

160 billion pounds of food go to waste every year in the U.S. 

There are companies like Imperfect Foods, Farm Fresh to You and Food Haven that are doing everything they can to keep perfectly good food from going to waste. 

All of those are true, Google it! The worst part is, much of the food piling up in our landfills is often perfectly edible and nutritious before it gets there. Yikes!

So, where do we go from here? 

As public awareness continues to grow surrounding the topic of food waste, it’s still difficult to determine whether true action is being taken to reduce our waste problem. With homes being the most dominant contributor to food waste, it’s clear to see that more attention needs to be devoted to the issue. There are all sorts of ways to improve our wasteful habits going forward. Some ideas to spark a change might be: teaching our kids about food waste in school, or making household carbon footprint resources & tips readily available to families all over the country. To many people's surprise, these environmentally conscious changes are often financially beneficial too. If we communicate these changes to people in a way that highlights how they individually benefit from them, we could see a very quick turnaround over the next decade or two. 

Our team at Food Haven is committed to ending food waste in the restaurant & hospitality industry, but we want to make it easy for you to minimize your waste at home too. While our app will bring you nutritious, delicious and affordable food, we also want to emphasize educating the public through free resources and education guides to eliminate food waste altogether. With your help, we'll continue to build a brighter, greener future. Follow us on Instagram @foodhavenapp or visit our website: https://foodhaven.app to keep up with our latest news, app release, funny memes and all things food waste related! 

Written by: Luciana Macaulay, Food Haven Marketing Content Manager