The New Food Waste Protocol

By all accounts, the food industry is working under the assumption that wasting food saves them money in the long run; that always having a full supply store and back-stock is paramount to customers who demand all things at all times. As a customer of restaurants and cafes myself, I’ve often felt the immediate outrage when a business runs out of product; “what do you mean, no more roast beef! But it’s on the menu?!.” It’s customers like me who bully business owners into a model of wartime scarcity hoarding. Slowly, the perception that more is better (and that running out is worse than throwing away) is fading.

The World Resources Institute (WRI) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) recently published a report on the environmental and economic damage incurred by food waste. The report , although it simply states the facts, reads like an ardent castigation of the food industry and its propensity for wastefulness.

It is an extraordinary fact that in the 21st century, close to 25 per cent of all the calories linked with growing and producing food are lost or wasted between the farm and the fork-food that could feed the hungry, food that has required energy, water and soils in a world of increasing natural resource scarcities and environmental concerns including climate change,” Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director.

The report explains why such wastefulness is exceedingly an error of the ignorant:

According to the study the world will need about 60 percent more food calories in 2050 compared to 2006 if global demand continues on its current trajectory.

The report also includes a laundry list of case studies that illuminate the economic (and incidentally environmental) benefits to managing food waste more carefully. In a case study conducted at a large university in the United States, the school did away with trays in the cafeteria and started charging students by the pound. By going “trayless”, the university discarded 13 metric tons less food waste than any previous year. In terms of water, that’s 100,000 liters of water saved annually. And financially, that’s $79,000 saved per year as well.

I hesitate to use the bottom line, or even the triple bottom line, as an industry motivator to be more sustainable and to waste less food. In an ideal world, we want to move away from making and saving money as the paramount economic edict. Instead we could use moral, cultural and social benchmarks to encourage businesses to do the right thing.

However, the bottom line is still the most convincing argument in any debate. And it’s true here too; the bottom line defines the struggle of the industrial food system to make money or reduce food waste. The report explains that the two are not mutually exclusive – that reducing food waste saves you money.

Most excitingly the report is the first attempt to create a comprehensive manifesto of food waste policy. “It makes a range of recommendations including the development of a ‘food loss and waste protocol’―a global standard for how to measure, monitor, and report food loss and waste.” Hopefully, the incentive of saving money and doing right will be strong enough for the global food industry to embrace this new protocol.