The Scary Truth about Food Waste: Introducing the Zero Food Waste FEAST Project
There’s something very scary happening across the world. The figures speak for themselves. Globally, around one third of food produced for human consumption is wasted. If food waste were a country, it would be the third largest emitter of greenhouses gases behind China and the USA1. In fact, food waste generates over four times more greenhouse gas emissions than aviation, putting it on a similar level to emissions from road transport.
And it’s not just greenhouse gas emissions that are a problem, reducing food waste also helps to save water. Each day individuals in the UK are wasting around 243 litres of water (indirectly) by throwing away food! This is a huge amount especially when you consider that on average an individual in the UK uses around 143 litres of water a day directly through drinking, washing and flushing the toilet.
Indirect water use is the water used to create the product we use and enjoy each day. Food takes a lot of water to grow and produce with some needing more than others. For example, it takes:
5,000 litres of water to produce 1kg of cheese.
15,500 litres to produce 1 kg of beef.
1,125 litres of water to produce just one loaf of bread.
What’s the story in the UK?
Over 4.5 million tonnes of food is wasted in the UK every year, which has an extraordinary environmental impact, contributing enough greenhouse gases as the equivalent of over 4.6 million return flights from London to Perth!
It is also eating into our economy. The amount of food wasted each year in the UK is equivalent to 1.3 billion meals which costs us, as a nation, £6 billion each year.
You may be wondering where all this food waste is coming from. Well, food waste is created at every point in the food system, but the biggest driver of this waste is from households, accounting for almost 70% of all food waste in the UK. Every year the average household with children throws away £730 worth of food that could have been eaten, according to WRAP.
Kentish Town City Farm kindly donated FEAST With Us this monster pumpkin, weighing in at 42kg.
Halloween is one of the biggest generators of food waste in the UK, with a terrifying 12.8 million pumpkins going uneaten and in the bin every year.
So, why are we producing so much food waste? A lot of it comes down to how we all buy, store, prep and re-use our food. And, with only 40% of municipalities across the UK have separate organic collection systems, that is a lot of food ending up in landfill sites or being incinerated.
It may also come as a surprise that the UK is suffering water scarcity. Climate change has meant that the UK is experiencing more intense wet and dry periods and the Environment Agency has predicted that we could have shortages within the next 25 years. Therefore, it is critical that we save water in any way that we can and one of those simple ways is reducing our food waste.
In 2015, The UN laid out 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to tackle the most urgent environmental and social issues facing us. Addressing the issue of food waste falls under SDG Goal 12 which looks to make our resource production and consumption more responsible and sustainable. One of the targets within this goal is to halve global food waste per capita by 2030.
What can I do to reduce my food waste and save water?
Change can be scary, but there are lots of small steps that you can take to help make a big difference. Here are just a few.
Saving Water.
Cut down your weekly meat intake - The water footprint per calorie for beef is 20 times that of cereals.
Steam your vegetables instead of boiling them - You are saving water and some research shows steam vegetables have higher nutritional value.
When you wash vegetables do it over a washing up bowl - You can then use the water that you collect in the bowl to water your plants.
Reducing Your Food Waste.
Plan out your meals in advance - Planning out your meals means you know what to buy and could even save money.
Check use by and best before dates and use your freezer - Checking dates will allow you to prioritise what you need to use up first. If you have too much of something using your freezer will provide a long-term solution.
Don’t peel vegetables unnecessarily - As long as you give your vegetables a good wash (and save the water!) you don’t have to peel them to eat.
What else are we doing to tackle food waste at FEAST With Us?
One of the core missions of FEAST With Us is to reduce food waste. Up until now, we have been simply intercepting perfectly edible food that was destined for landfill from retailers and distributors, such as The Felix Project, City Harvest and Edible London. Since March 2020, we have saved over 7,000kg of food from going to waste by using it to cook up healthy and nutritious meals for vulnerable people suffering food poverty.
The majority of FEAST meals are also vegetarian or even vegan which is great in terms of saving water since the water footprint of any animal product is larger than the water footprint of crop products with equivalent nutritional value.
We are proud of our fantastic charity model and everything we have achieved so far, but there is one flaw: we are still producing food waste through our own operations.
The Solution?
In September, we applied for funding from the North London Waste Authority (NLWA) for an ambitious project proposal to eliminate all food waste across our operations.
The idea is simple; to understand where we are generating food waste and design action plans to firstly prevent, and then to re-use food we cannot cook in a closed-loop system, so that at the end nothing goes to waste.
The Result?
We got the funding!
Over the next six months, our Sustainability and Training Coordinator, Alyson, will be working with our Sustainability Interns Anouk and Emily to put our plan into action. The first step will be to create a baseline for our current food waste by conducting audits across each of our sites, then to devise tailored solutions for each site to tackle food waste.
From running social media campaigns, hosting Zero Food Waste Masterclasses, installing wormeries and composters, collaborating with community gardens to produce training and educational materials, FEAST With Us plans to design and implement a new way of working without food waste that can be replicated by other businesses and organisations across London.
And you can be a part of it!
We are looking for volunteers to become Food Waste Champions: an exciting and important role in overseeing waste during cooking sessions and encouraging a more sustainable approach to cooking.
In the meantime, watch this space and follow us on social media to find out how you can get involved to help us achieve our mission of making every FEAST cooking session a Zero Food Waste FEAST.
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