(2017). Household frequency of weekly avoidable food waste weight. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). Municipalities have also worked together to create story-lines about waste. Articles, Research Centre for Food and Nutrition, Council for Agricultural Research and Economics, Italy. In essence, we are suggesting story-lines that “illustrate where [our] work fits into the jigsaw” [(20), p.63]. This paper outlines estimations of the kg of CO2 produced per kg of edible food product. Mekonnen MM, Hoekstra AY. The 25 items that represented the largest share of the avoidable food waste weight are presented in Table 2. At the international scale, there has been a relatively recent increase in attention to food waste in both research and policy (1–4), suggesting that conversations about this topic have gained prominence and momentum in our collective consciousness. Do Canadian Adults Meet their Nutrient Requirements through Food Intake Alone? This concept merits future research. We posit that these diverse framings can support the creation of evidence-based story-lines that foreground the issue of food waste in Canada. Some municipalities have their own local communications and awareness-raising programs, such as York Region's Good Food Program. In this sample, wasted fruits and vegetables contributed 62% of wasted fiber, 48% of wasted magnesium, 85% of wasted vitamin A and 96% of wasted vitamin C. Figure 6. 10. Stancu V, Haugaard P, Lähteenmäki L. Determinants of consumer food waste behaviour: Two routes to food waste. Ontario Society of Nutrition Professionals in Public Health. However, our focus in this analysis was on the avoidable and possibly avoidable quantities as this is the edible portion of the organic stream. Table 6. (2015). We compared the total mean weights of the 2017 and 2018 sub-samples using a Mann-Whitney test and found that these were comparable sub-groups that could be combined for subsequent analysis. 6 Reducing this waste across the value chain is a major business opportunity, valued at … Our focus for this paper is on food that could have been eaten, and so we aggregated the avoidable and possibly avoidable categories. The six categories are: fruits and vegetables, meat and fish, grains and cereals, dairy (milk, cheese, and eggs), fats and sugars, and other (primarily coffee grounds and tea). Update: FCM Adopts NZWC Resolution on the Value of a Federal Tax Incentive to Prevent Food Waste. http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/QC (accessed 08, March 2019). It is a lost opportunity that negatively impacts multiple stakeholders. For example, in September 2016, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) expressed their support for the tax credit, but did not mention food security as a motivator for this endorsement: “That FCM support the National Zero Waste Council's food waste reduction federal tax incentive proposal … thereby helping reduce food waste, lower municipal costs for waste disposal and decrease the environmental impact of food waste” (36). This estimate was then contextualized in terms of economic losses (dollar value), nutritional losses (calories, vitamins, and minerals) and environmental impacts (global warming potential, land, and water usage). We have framed our results as a list of most wasted items in order to make the sometimes nebulous issue of food waste seem more tangible. EU FUSIONS. 55. Ontario Food Collaborative. View all
Using data on crop yield from 1998 to 2018 in the FAOSTAT database, we generated the land in m2 necessary to produce a kg of over 150 food products. doi: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2012.08.002. (2016). Retrieved from: https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator (accessed June 4, 2019). J Clean Product. According to Health Canada, the prevalence of inadequate intakes among adults is highest for vitamin A, vitamin D, magnesium and calcium. 13. Looking at household food waste through the lens of a composition audit reveals that the proportions of wasted food across food groups are fairly consistent from low- to high-wasting households. Eighty-four percent of the variation in value was explained by total weight of wasted food, and total cost increased by approximately $5.70 per kilogram of avoidable food waste. The Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) has estimated that Canadian households waste 85 kg of food per person annually. (2013) 60:102–20. Meat and fish are relatively expensive foodstuffs, and so had a disproportionate impact on the cost of wasted food. 25. (2016). Health Canada. This equates to $21.12 per week. restaurants and retail outlets) or in the home. The annual value of food wasted globally is $1 trillion, and it weighs 1.3 billion tonnes. Cooper et al. Food waste is a massive market inefficiency, the kind of which does not persist in other industries. Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator. Meta-analysis papers in the LCA literature are useful in this regard because they can combine and assess these varied studies to generate average estimates of environmental impacts for different food products. 5; Food waste costs the global economy around US$940 billion each year. Glob Environ Change. Identifying factors that promote consumer behaviors causing expired domestic food waste. A focus on food quality rather than food quantity is critical. Retrieved from: https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/nick-saul/food-waste-poverty_b_10327320.html (accessed May 13, 2019). 31. J Acad Nutr Dietet. lzelin@wri.org doi: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.04.082, 42. A meal plan and a shopping list are two of the best tools for reducing food waste. Find out here. This study took place in the city of Guelph, Ontario, and was conducted in accordance with the University of Guelph's Research Ethics Board protocols. A Case for Reducing Food Waste. The Green, Blue and Grey Water Footprint of Farm Animals and Animal Products,Value of Water Research Report Series No. When assessing the nutritional value of wasted food, it is important to look beyond calories to consider a range of nutrients required to support overall health. (2018). doi: 10.1002/cb.1488, 49. There was a relationship between the variety of food items discarded and the total weight of avoidable food waste (Figure 3). Food Waste. 56. The causes of food waste or loss are numerous and occur throughout the food system, during production, processing, distribution, retail and consumption. Received: 05 June 2019; Accepted: 19 August 2019; Published: 04 September 2019. The list includes very common items in Canadian grocery baskets, enabling individuals to better imagine their own purchasing, consumption, and wasting behaviors around these specific items. Comparison of avoidable food waste composition between quartiles. Join this course. AW, NC, and MW organized the database used for this study. (2019) 1998–2017. Household frequency of avoidable food waste cost. (16), who suggest that avoidable food waste used 6.3 cubic meters per person per week. +1-202-729-7754, Brian Lipinski
Food waste generation at household level: results of a survey among employees of two european research centers in Italy and Germany. It may be worth targeting this sub-group with interventions in order to address the hotspots of avoidable food waste in the residential sector. (2) note that over half of the published articles in their systematic review of food waste across the supply chain relied on secondary data, whereas only about 20% of these studies used direct observations. 8. In developing countries food waste and losses occur mainly at early stages of the food value chain and can be traced back to financial, managerial and technical constraints in harvesting techniques as well as storage and cooling facilities. Study of Organic Waste Reduction: Tax Incentive Options for Charitable Food Donations Making the Business Case. Appl Physiol Nutr Metab. We are not advocating for any one framing as the ideal discursive framing for food waste, but rather we encourage advocates, practitioners, and policy-makers to develop evidence-based communications and interventions. 1 Of the estimated 125 to 160 billion pounds of food that goes to waste every year, much of it is perfectly edible and nutritious. Saul N. Stop Trying to Solve Hunger with Corporate Food Waste. (42), we estimated the land usage of the remaining protein-rich food items found in our audits. Furthermore, the City of Guelph is active in providing educational content on waste management topics through their website, the distribution of informational material to households, and participation in community events. Composition of avoidable food waste. In the EU alone, we waste 90 million tons of food every year, i.e. (2017). It is possible that only families with a pre-existing interest in and understanding of food chose to participate. This quantity of weekly food waste weight represents the suggested recommended daily caloric intake for 1.7 adults or 2.2 children. REFRESH and Ecologic Institute. Washington, DC 20002, United States
27. Hajer's analysis focuses on the enabling capacity of discourses, and the ability of individuals to strategically deploy discursive strategies. (2016). They also observed narratives framing food waste as a “perfect storm” of issues, including environmental, social, and economic impacts. 24. Their final estimates suggest that Canada generates 12.6 million tons of organic waste that is sent to final disposal, and an additional 5.8 million tons of organics that are diverted to alternative treatment. 44. Conference Board of Canada. The FAOSTAT yield data is mainly restricted to crops while data relating to animal products are mostly expressed in terms of total production per capita within a region. The use of residual biomass helps decrease fossil fuel dependency whilst simultaneously reducing the demand for additional biomass resource. From Waste to Value: How to Tackle Food Waste. Table 11-10-0222-01: Household Spending, Canada, Regions and Provinces. They have created water usage databases for crops (43) and animal products (44) that are accessible for use and interpretation. The avoidable food waste water use estimates from our sample are lower than those from Cooper et al. 21. The editor and reviewers' affiliations are the latest provided on their Loop research profiles and may not reflect their situation at the time of review. doi: 10.1016/j.resconrec.2013.04.011, 48. Environment and Climate Change Canada (the federal environment ministry) has recently taken leadership on the food waste file, convening multi-stakeholder workshops and commissioning reports on this topic. Retrieved from: https://www.york.ca/wps/portal/yorkhome/health/yr/nutrition/goodfood/!ut/p/a0/04_Sj9CPykssy0xPLMnMz0vMAfGjzOI9Hd09PTy8Dbz8TSycDRwN_B29jMwtDFwtDfULsh0VAZAcf3w!/#.XN2EdehKjIU (accessed May 13, 2019). There were a small number of high volume and value households that drove up the average weekly cost of wasted food (Figure 4). These requirements may have served as a disincentive for families who were less organized, possibly correlating with poor food planning skills and higher food waste generation. We see a strong relationship between weight of avoidable food waste and calories. Available online at: http://www.waterfootprint.org/Reports/Report47-WaterFootprintCrops-Vol1.pdf (accessed April 30, 2019). 6. The FLW Value Calculator (in beta test version) creates a snapshot of the impacts related to the loss and waste of different types of food. For example, Parizeau et al. Figure 8. doi: 10.1021/acs.est.7b00401, PubMed Abstract | CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar, 3. do Carmo Stangherlin I, de Barcellos MD. They characterize this waste as representing 58.1% of the commodities entering the food system, at a cost of $49.5 billion. Retrieved from: https://secondharvest.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Avoidable-Crisis-of-Food-Waste-Technical-Report-January-17-2019.pdf (accessed May 13, 2019). I Value Food. Benosa: From waste to value: How to tackle food waste • Pre-shop planning.
He argues that the struggle for discursive hegemony is a political project whereby different actors “try to secure support for their definition of reality” (p.59). People who bought high volumes of food or who bought a high diversity of items generated more wasted food. Breakdown of nutrient loss from avoidable food waste by food group. A Food Policy for Canada. Ecoprod. doi: 10.1016/j.resconrec.2013.12.005, 50. 11. To fill in these gaps, we turned to another LCA meta-analysis study. (2015) Retrieved from: http://www.osnpph.on.ca/upload/membership/document/2016-02/position-statement-2015-final.pdf#upload/membership/document/position-statement-2015-final.pdf (accessed May 13, 2019). Wasted food: U.S. consumers' reported awareness, attitudes, and behaviors. This strategy thus frames food waste as a systemic and policy-relevant issue that requires attention across the food value chain. If you have 430 students living on campus, then:. Delft, UNESCO-IHE (2010). In the rest of this note, we will use ‘food waste’ to refer to both waste and loss. (2016) 96:7–17. 4.7 (64 reviews) Discover the causes and impact of food waste, and learn how you can tackle it on a personal, community, and national level. Food, waste and safety: Negotiating conflicting social anxieties into the practices of domestic provisioning. Resour. LIVE. Eligibility for this study required that families have at least one child between 2 to 8 years of age and that parents have no prior nutrition or food training. The following analysis focuses on providing evidence for the key discursive framings of food waste that are already at play in Canada, including the economic, health / nutritional, and environmental impacts of avoidable household food waste. Mekonnen MM, Hoekstra AY. The difference in value is likely attributable to food cost differences between Vancouver and Guelph. Gooch M, Bucknell D, LaPlain D, Dent B, Whitehead P, Felfel A, et al. In this case, we were unable to observe food waste that was disposed of by other means (i.e., sink garburators, fed to animals etc.). (2018) 172:325–34. How Much is 100,000 Litres of Water? Love Food Hate Waste. For example, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia have banned organic wastes from landfills, and Quebec is implementing a staged ban as well (12). 2. The first quartile of households had an average cost of $6.47 per week while the fourth quartile had an average cost of $31.35 per week. In the food sector, waste is a major social, nutritional and environmental issue, affecting the sustainability of the food chain as a whole. Explore how combatting food waste and food loss can help the environment. (2018) 13:8470. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0198470, 16. Cooper KA, Quested TE, Lanctuit H, Zimmermann D, Espinoza-Orias N, Roulin A. Aschemann-Witzel J, Giménez A, Ares G. Convenience or price orientation? Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food. Quested TE, Parry AD, Easteal S, Swannell R. Food and drink waste from households in the UK. Overall, the current Ontario government's perspective on food waste as an environmental issue is that win-win solutions are possible: “Avoiding food waste, rescuing surplus food, and diverting unavoidable food and organic waste is both good for the environment and good for business” [(25), p.15]. Focusing on these nutrients presents a promising opportunity to develop nutrition-based narratives that would be relevant to most households. Resour Conser Recycl. This document alludes to the potential for food rescue as a solution for food waste, which is discussed as a discursive phenomenon below. Drivers and barriers to food waste reduction. The sample mean weights for the total basket and each category are shown in Table 1. Collected waste was then taken to a central municipal facility where it was audited to evaluate food waste volume and composition. They estimate that 35.5 million metric tons of food are lost or wasted in Canada, including 11.2 million metric tons of avoidable food waste. (2019). (16) attribute 6.1 kg of CO2 from avoidable food waste per capita weekly in the United Kingdom. What is food waste and what can I do about it? With this knowledge you can demonstrate how your efforts to prevent food loss and waste provide nutritional and environmental value. I Value Food: A Campaign to End Food Waste from Sustainable America on Vimeo. (2019). doi: 10.1016/j.wasman.2014.09.019, 15. van der Werf P, Seabrook JA, Gilliland JA. Table 4 contains GWP statistics for animal products, proteins, and aggregate produce categories, while Table 5 contains GWP statistics for many specific food items. Resour Conserv Recycl. (2017) 122:172–84. With this knowledge you can demonstrate how your efforts to prevent food loss and waste provide nutritional and environmental value. This growth is attributed to the rising concerns over food waste globally. 2.7 billion euros. Using this highly granular data set, we found that the average household in our study generated approximately 2.98 kg of avoidable food waste per week. (2012). Our estimate is approximately one-quarter of that estimate. The framing of food waste as a potential health risk may be a compelling one for individuals and policy-makers. Food waste or food loss is food that is not eaten. The avoidable food waste items from the audit data were linked with the water usage databases. For the economic analysis, the dollar value for each avoidable food item by weight was calculated using receipt data collected during the study. A critical review of global food losses and food waste data. The list also points to implications for retailers who make decisions about promotions, discounts, packaging, and in-store reprocessing of commonly wasted foods, which may impact consumer choices and behaviors (52–54). Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations. Given the recent policy attention to food waste at different scales of government in Canada, it is clear that this issue will soon reach a stage of discursive institutionalization. Waste Manag. The distributions of wasted nutrients expressed as daily adult serving requirements differ by nutrient and are presented in Figure 7. 180 kg per person (European Commission (EC), 2011a). We now turn to a discussion of the potential discursive implications of our analysis. A pilot study on Italian households. Some might argue that given the current global obesity epidemic (58), throwing out calories may not necessarily be a bad thing. Other root causes of FLW include the true cost of FLW not being internalized by industry and consumers. Welch D, Swaffield J, Evans D. Who's responsible for food waste? The datasets for this manuscript are not publicly available because of restrictions related to our Research Ethics Board requirements. Our analysis yielded a Spearman correlation coefficient of 0.76 (p < 0.01) indicating that variety of food items discarded and food waste generation increase together, but there remains some unexplained variation. (2016). (2019). Click here for a printable, fill-in version of this Commercial Food Waste Disposal Ban threshold estimation guide for colleges and universities.. Among Canadian children, fiber, calcium and vitamin D are also listed as nutrients of concern (38). Nutrition Labelling. doi: 10.3390/su7032695, 51. Data reported in this paper includes results from the weekly household waste audits and results from the analysis of receipts collected for all food purchases, including grocery stores and meals purchased outside of the home. Although this can result in some change in waste behaviors, it would have been difficult for families to hold back or attempt to hide their food waste in other waste streams as we collected all streams of waste in this study for an extended period of time. Dachner N, Tarasuk V. Food Waste and Food Insecurity in Canada. Retrieved from: http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/nutrition/vitamin/vita-d-eng.php (accessed May 29, 2019). They estimate that individuals generate approximately 85 kg of food waste per year in the residential sector (12). Waste was collected each week on the day the family would have expected their regular waste pick-up by the municipality. Front. Fruits and vegetables represented 66% of the total weight of the avoidable food waste and almost 40% of the CO2 generated by the total avoidable food waste. Use a basket or small... • … For example, there is inconsistency in determining the end of the environmental impact of a processed agri-food commodity depending on whether the LCA finishes once the product reaches the processor, retailer, or end-user. On an annual basis, the land used to produce avoidable food waste equated to 348.0 m2 per household per year. The Commission for Environmental Cooperation recently worked to create a comprehensive estimate for organic waste in Canada. In his classic analysis of environmental discourse, Hajer (20) observes that certain issues become emblematic at distinctive times, garnering public and political attention. Environ Sci Technol. Fruits and vegetables make up most of the avoidable food waste generated by all households, followed by bread and cereals, and then meat and fish. How has food waste come to gain prominence and visibility in our modern world? Consumers tend to see food waste as an economic or social issue, more than an environmental issue (14, 47, 62–64). Martin RC. Appetite.
jholzer@wri.org
Water usage is another common way of evaluating the environmental impact of different agri-food practices. The global warming potential (GWP) associated with avoidable household food waste calculated in this study was 23.3 kg CO2 per household per week, and the median value was 16.9 kg (Table 5). For example, if a household had “asparagus” food scraps which constituted 10% of that household's known vegetable weight for that week, the “asparagus” category would receive 10% of that household's “Unknown Vegetable” category. These estimates tend to be very region-specific. We note that Cooper et al. Retrieved from http://vcm-international.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Food-Waste-in-Canada-27-Billion-Revisited-Dec-10-2014.pdf (accessed May 13, 2019). (2018):519. doi: 10.3389/fnut.2018.00019, 17. (2018). The FLW Value Calculator (in beta test version) creates a snapshot of the impacts related to the loss and waste of different types of food. Join course for free. Delley M, Brunner TA. doi: 10.1016/j.appet.2017.05.013, 53. (2013) 38:234–42. Furthermore, the category of direct observations included self-report methods such as surveys and diaries: research shows that such observational methods can be unreliable and tend to underestimate food waste generation (17–19). We subsequently characterized the economic, nutritional, and environmental footprint of the avoidable food waste observed in the audits. (2019). The Communication on Circular Economy calls on the Commission to elaborate a common EU methodology to measure food waste so as to support achievement of the Sustainable Development Goal 12.3 target on food waste and maximise the contribution of all actors in the food value chain.. It is anchored by three broad objectives: Prevent food waste from occurring in the first place; Recover safe and nutritious food for people and food scraps for animals; and Recycle energy and nutrients from the remaining, unavoidable food waste [(9), p.7]. Despit … (13) used surveys, interviews, and secondary data to inform their estimates of food loss and waste (FLW) at different points in the Canadian food value chain. The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. 1. Avoidable waste from breads and cereals represented a larger share of land use than of weight. Giordano C, Piras S, Boschini M, Falasconi L. Are questionnaires a reliable method to measure food waste? These authors argue that the discourse collation that has emerged in the United Kingdom around food waste has reached the stage of discursive hegemony. blipinski@wri.org
This finding speaks to the importance of influencing individual shopping behaviors in order to reduce food waste, but also in addressing the factors that encourage consumers to buy more in the first place, including retail strategies and broader cultural norms that support over-consumption. B) FAO’s definition of food waste. The FLW Value Calculator (in beta test version) creates a snapshot of the impacts related to the loss and waste of different types of food. Dietary composition of avoidable food waste. (2015). In the same manner as the GWP figures, the 316 avoidable food waste items were matched with the most appropriate food product from the FAOSTAT data which linked a land usage value to the unique food waste items in this study. An LCA meta-analysis study conducted by Clune et al. *Correspondence: Michael von Massow, mvonmass@uoguelph.ca; Kate Parizeau, kate.parizeau@uoguelph.ca, Front. (2017). Retrieved from: https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/october-2017/food-waste-and-food-insecurity-in-canada/ (accessed May 13, 2019). For example, nutrient-dense but low-calorie foods such as fruits and vegetables are better examined based on their nutritional quality rather than their caloric density. The global food waste management market size was estimated at USD 34.22 billion in 2019. A business case study prepared by the Conference Board of Canada for the NZWC listed “Increasing, Improving, or Enhancing Household Food Security” as one of the benefits of a donation tax incentive, alongside environmental and economic benefits [(31), p. 15]. (2019). Meat and fish represented a small proportion of the total weight (6%) but a much larger proportion of total cost (13%). Retrieved from: http://www.nzwc.ca/focus/food/tax-incentive/Documents/Update-FCMAdoptsPolicyTaxIncentive.pdf (accessed May 13, 2019). The total lost nutritional value for each of the study households was calculated by multiplying the total weight of each item wasted by the amount of each nutrient listed for that food [i.e., Nutrient Loss = Food Waste Amount (grams) × Nutrition Concentration (nutrient amount/gram of edible food)]. Cooper et al. Global food loss and waste amount to between one-third and one-half of all food produced. IFPRI is conducting state-of-the-art research to measure food loss and waste at all stages -- from production and post-production to processing, distribution and consumption -- … 20. Calories appear to be relatively normally distributed with a slightly long tail to the right (Figure 5). These areas were carbon dioxide (CO2) produced (i.e., global warming potential), land usage, and water usage. Results presented in this study also support previous findings identifying wasted food as having a high influence on the availability of important micronutrients (59). Data was collected from 54 families in 2017 and 40 families 2018, for a total of 94 participating households. 28. (2019). (14), and similar food group proportions were observed in a randomly-selected sample from Guelph (unpublished data). Love Food Hate Waste Canada. Aschemann-Witzel J, Haagen Jensen J, Hyldetoft Jensen M, Kulikovskaja V. Consumer behavior towards price-reduced suboptimal foods in the supermarket and the relation to food waste in households. While food waste discourse in Canada is not coherent, there are some common themes that emerge in the messaging from key influencers. But WWF is determined to reverse this trend. The Green, Blue and Grey Water Footprint of Crops and Deriacved Crop Products, Value of Water Research Report Series No. (16) conducted a similar analysis using UK food waste data. Retrieved from: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/obesity-and-overweight (accessed May 31, 2019). (2010) Retrieved from: http://vcm-international.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Food-Waste-in-Canada-November-2010.pdf (accessed May 13, 2019). (2012) 37:760–70.