10 facts about food waste

Here are some things I learned from Tristram Stuart’s book Waste: uncovering the global food scandal.

• 84% of British households don’t believe they have a problem with wasting food, despite the evidence to the contrary.

• WRAP may or may not survive the great coalition quango cull, but here’s why it should: WRAP’s research into household waste cost £420,000, and it’s campaign cost £4 million. It has since saved British consumers an estimated £300 million.

• In the US, 1 million tonnes of food is redistributed every year, helping 26 million people. This is a per person redistribution rate 14 times better than Britain, where we use feeding programmes rather than food banks.

• If the law banning pig swill was changed, the waste we currently throw away could produce 3 million tonnes of pork at a value of £15bn.

• A Nigerian restaurant in East London, Obalende Suya Express, charges you a £2.50 donation fee to Oxfam if you don’t finish your dinner.

• US shops and restaurants serve up 3,900 kcal per person per day, twice the daily recommended daily allowance.

• 150 million tonnes of grain are lost post-harvest in developing countries, enough to feed all their hungry people six times over.

• In 2001 Japan demanded that all food businesses recycle 48% of their food by 2006. The measure was so successful in reducing food sent to landfill that a second target has been introduced, to recycle 66% of food waste by 2012.

• Globally, 33% of food is lost to to consumer waste, processing waste, and post-harvest losses.

• If we could avoid this loss, we could feed an additional 3 billion people.