WHAT ABOUT FOOD WASTE? An everyday habit or a global climate threat?

Roughly one-third of all food produced is never eaten. Beyond the financial and social costs, food waste is also a major driver of climate change. When we waste food, we waste the land, water, and energy used to produce it, and as it decomposes, it releases methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

In this episode, James and Daisy explore the causes and consequences of food waste, sharing their experiences with organisations fighting the problem. Why do we waste so much food? What are the impacts? And what solutions are there?

SOME RECOMMENDATIONS:

• Project Drawdown: Identifies reducing food loss and waste as one of the largest climate solutions across all sectors.
• The Felix Project: London’s largest food redistribution charity, rescuing high quality, surplus food that would otherwise go to waste and redistributing it to over 1,200 community organisations.
• FoodCycle: Reduces loneliness, food poverty and food waste by cooking nutritious meals from surplus food at volunteer-run hubs.

OTHER ADVOCATES AND RESOURCES:

• Winnow: Provides AI-powered food waste monitors and digital scales in professional kitchens, giving detailed data analytics to help chefs and managers cut waste.
• WEF (2022): Reports on how heatwaves and droughts have resulted in oddly shaped crops of fruit and vegetables.
• Tesco (2020): During the pandemic, egg demand rose 30%, prompting Tesco to sell white eggs for the first time since the 1980s.
• Tesco: In 2013, Tesco became the first retailer to publicly report on food waste in its own operations.
• PVM: At least 60% of the surface of a Pink Lady® apple must be covered by a pink blush.
• Oddbox: Works with growers to rescue the “too odd” and “too many” at risk of going to waste, delivering boxes of farm-fresh fruit and veg to households.
• Too Good To Go: The world's largest marketplace for surplus food – an app that connects consumers with surplus food from stores, cafés, and restaurants at a discount.
• Olio: A mobile app for sharing by giving away, getting, borrowing or lending things in your community for free, aiming to reduce household and food waste.
• Mimica (2018): Creator of “Bump”, a temperature-sensitive label that turns bumpy when food actually spoils.
• Chanzi: Uses Black Solder Fly larvae to convert food waste into nutritious protein for animal feed.

SOME FACTS:

• UNEP (2024): In 2022, households wasted over 1 billion meals a day, while 783 million people were affected by hunger and a third of humanity faced food insecurity.
• UNEP (2024): Food waste results in the throwing away of more than US$1 trillion worth of food every year. In households alone, each person, on average, wastes more than the average mass of an adult human per year.
• IPCC (2019): During 2010–2016, global food loss and waste equalled 8–10% of total anthropogenic GHG emissions.
• Our World in Data (2020): If food waste were a country, it would be the third largest emitter of GHGs after China and the US.
• WRAP (2020): While 81% of people reported being concerned about climate change, only 37% understand how wasted food contributes to it.
• The Independent (2012): A wrapped cucumber lasts more than three times as long as an unwrapped one.

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Music: “Just Because Some Bad Wind Blows” by Nick Nuttall, Reptiphon Records. Available at https://nicknuttallmusic.bandcamp.com/album/just-because-some-bad-wind-blows-3

Producer: Podshop Studios

Huge thanks to Siobhán Foster, a vital member of the team offering design advice, critical review and organisation that we depend upon.

Stay tuned for more insightful discussions on navigating the transition away from fossil fuels to a sustainable future.