Food Waste – blah, blah, blah …

Every so often there appears a heart-rendering article (usually published by a science/food editor of a mag or on-line publication) bemoaning the ‘mountain of food’ being wasted each year.

Stats/graphs/pics are published that ‘prove’ that food is being wasted at a rate of knots (from post-harvesting, to fresh produce market, to supermarket retail floor).

What get’s done about it?

Very little from my experience – try writing to the editor or even the so-called experts quoted in the article to advise them that there are tangible, cost-effective, solutions available to substantially reduce the quoted waste and you would be very fortunate to even get an acknowledgement that you took the effort to drop them a line.

Worried me for a while about the ethics being practised by such folk, but then came to realise that such articles are usually sponsored projects wherein the “problem” is researched and verified, but the author is not being paid/sponsored to find solutions, so when one proffers a solution you are likely to get a response I once received from a well know academic … “that’s interesting”!

Or, more likely, such articles are annual fillers that “prove” that the publisher and/or editor cares about the topic and knows that there will be an interest but so what if that mountain keeps on increasing … but hey bring on the ads as I can prove that my articles are being read!