Food waste is just one symptom of a very big problem

At Foodrise, we have always argued that food waste is just one symptom of our dysfunctional food system (see our founder’s TED talk from 2012) – a system which produces too much food, and fails to use it efficiently, leading to both waste and hunger. What’s more, in the process of producing and wasting all this food, our food system is seriously damaging our planet. Our food system needs to change.

But what does that change look like? We’ve taken a close look at the answer to this question, and come up with our proposal for what needs to happen.

Our broken food system

What’s wrong with the way we produce food now? Our food system is broken, firstly because it is linear – in other words food travels in one direction, from production and processing, to consumption and disposal. In the process, huge quantities of resources are used to grow and transform our food, including petrochemicals and fossil fuel energy. Then we generate significant amounts of pollution in disposing of it, for example through landfill.

The second problem is that our food system is growing beyond what our planet can sustain. All along the process of growing, processing, distributing and consuming food, vast amounts go to waste (a third of all food grown, it is estimated). And because no one bears the cost of these losses, nor of the wider environmental impacts of agriculture, our food system is characterised by overproduction. Despite the fact that millions of people go hungry worldwide, millions also suffer the health costs of overconsumption – and we all suffer the environmental impacts of wasting precious water, land and energy on growing food that is never eaten. The fact is, we don’t need a bigger food system, we need a better one.

Here’s what our current, linear food system looks like:

Building a better, more circular food system

We want to build a better food system: one that isn’t linear, but circular. This better food system would gobble fewer resources to produce food, and lose far less food in the form of waste. In fact, a defining principle of our circular food system is that food previously seen as ‘waste’ actually has value, and can be used as a resource. Ideally this surplus food should be used for the purpose it was originally intended: usually this means that if food is still fit for human consumption, it should feed people. If not, it should be repurposed to feed livestock and fish, and finally, fed to soils through compost and manure. All three levels of the food system – humans, animals and soils – need to be fed and replenished to create a sustainable future.

As what was formerly seen as ‘waste’ is reused, less waste pollution through landfill disposal is created, and less resources are needed to produce food in the first place (because we are using almost all of it, instead of throwing it away, we don’t need to produce as much). Overproduction is reined in. These ‘best use loops’ create a small, circular, low-waste system that fits within the limits of our planet, while feeding everyone on a fair basis.

A sustainable food system:

That’s where we need to get to – and pretty quickly, because currently our food system is the single biggest problem standing in the way of tackling climate change, biodiversity loss and other major environmental problems. And we think we have some great ideas for how to do that. This summer, we’re putting the finishing touches on a range of new projects to take the next step towards a better, more sustainable food system. To be the first to hear the news you can sign up to our mailing list by taking the food waste pledge.

Foodrise welcomes the publication of the recent Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Committee report on food waste in England. As expert witnesses to the Committee, we are pleased that the Committee clearly recognises the high environmental cost of food waste, and has taken up many of our recommendations.

We particularly welcome the Committee’s recommendation on the adoption of a national food waste reduction target. In setting this target, we call for a target that exceeds the UN’s global goal of halving food waste and reducing food loss, by 2030. With existing private and third sector initiatives on food waste, we believe England is well-placed to show global leadership in combatting food waste and its environmental consequences, and meet this target by 2025.

We also welcome the Committee’s reaffirming of the need to uphold the food waste pyramid and an incentive system that encourages its implementation, putting prevention first, redistributing where possible and transforming unavoidable waste using the least environmentally damaging methods available.

While we applaud the leadership shown by some retailers in food waste reduction, we share the Committee’s view on the limits of voluntary approaches to food waste reduction in the private sector. We welcome the Committee’s call for transparency on food waste, and mandatory, comparable reporting on food waste for businesses above a certain size. We believe reporting should cover both operational and key supply hotspots, and highlight how trading practices drive food waste across the supply chain.

Our research suggests that one of the main causes of farm-level waste in the UK is overly rigid aesthetic specifications for produce; we welcome the Committee’s recommendation to loosen these. In this regard, we further call for supermarkets to disclose their cosmetic specifications for fresh produce.

In combating household-level food waste, we share the Committee’s view that much work remains to be done. We believe that the laudable initiatives to date in this area have shown the limits of awareness raising in achieving household behaviour change; we urge the government to further explore how supermarkets marketing, promotional and packaging practices drive overconsumption and waste. A study of household waste according to where households shop could usefully inform work in this area.

The report highlights that separation of food waste from other wastes remains woefully inadequate for English household waste, and non-existent for business waste: we urge the government to work closely with local authorities to urgently increase food waste separation, a necessary condition for recovery for animal feed or energy from waste.

Despite the Committee’s highlighting of the waste hierarchy, the report is disappointingly quiet on the possibility of diverting food waste away from anaerobic digestion and landfill for animal feed. We urge the government to investigate the large-scale feeding of food waste to livestock, a measure that would have considerable environmental benefit in England and internationally, and would help English farmers save costs.

We’re delighted to announce that our new Executive Director will shortly be joining us. Carina Millstone will join the Foodrise team on 20 March.

Carina replaces co-founder Niki Charalampopoulou as Executive Director, though Niki will remain with Foodrise in an advisory and ambassadorial capacity. We send Niki off on her next adventures with peas, love and gratitude and we look forward to drawing on her expertise in the future.

Carina is the founder of The Orchard Project, a charity working with community groups in cities across the UK to plant and nurture community orchards. She has also worked for Environmental Resources Management, the New Economy Coalition and Changing Markets. She has been a Visiting Research Fellow at Tufts University’s Global Development and Environment Institute, and is a Fellow of the Schumacher Institute. She is the author of a forthcoming book, Frugal Value, on the role of the private sector in sustainable consumption and production.

Carina says:

‘I am delighted to be have been appointed the Executive Director of Foodrise, the only global campaigning organisation dedicated to cutting out food waste at all levels of the supply chain. While agriculture continues to take a dangerous toll on our climate, biodiversity and water, a staggering one-third of food produced globally is never eaten. At Foodrise, we intend to put an end to this scandal, making sure all food is nourishment rather than waste – thus improving the environmental efficiency of food production and consumption and driving the shift to a global, sustainable food system that we so urgently require.’

We can’t wait to welcome Carina to the food waste movement and look forward to updating you on our upcoming work under her leadership. You can read the full press release announcing her appointment here.