food waste

The annual World Food Prize conference opens today in Des Moines, providing a setting for Purdue to launch its post-harvest initiative against food waste. The initiative is a bundle of projects to prevent food loss after harvest, improve nutrition, support food entrepreneurs and build agricultural value chains, says the university.

Countries must start figuring out how much food they waste if they’re going to meet the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goal of halving global food waste and lowering food loss by 2030, says a report out by Champions 12.3, a coalition of government, business, and research organizations.

It used to be called "garbage feeding," tossing table scraps and unwanted, uneaten food to barnyard animals to peck or chew in a haphazard addition to their rations. With concern mounting on climate change and food waste, the practice of recycling scraps into livestock feed looks like a winning way to reduce food waste, says Inside Climate News.

Researchers at the USDA have developed a new food-packaging material made out of milk-protein (i.e. casein) that is both biodegradable and edible, says EurekAlert. Compared to petroleum-based plastics, the casein-based packaging is 500 times more effective at keeping out oxygen, which could dramatically reduce food waste from spoilage.

Too Good To Go, a food rescue app, has convinced restaurants in six countries to sell end-of-the-day food at a discount to hungry locals in an effort to reduce food waste. The six-month-old app has a major presence in the UK, with a waitlist of 95 London eateries anticipating its August launch, Eater writes.

The Italian Senate passed a law that makes it easier for farmers and processors to donate food to charities and encourages restaurants to send food home with diners in doggy bags, says the Guardian. A sponsor says 1 million tonnes of food per year, or one-fifth of annual wastage, will be saved by the bill, which comes six years after France passed similar legislation.

America’s biggest grocer is joining the “ugly” fruit and veg trend with sales of imperfect apples in 300 Florida stores, says NPR. Wal-Mart will sell the apples, which may be misshapen or have dents and scars under the brand name “I’m Perfect.”

Since 2012, a Texas nonprofit has distributed more than 8 million pounds of rescued produce to more than 20,000 low-income families, and claims to be acclimating kids and entire families to prefer a healthier diet built around fresh fruits and vegetables, reports Civil Eats.

Nearly half of the fruit and vegetables grown on U.S. farms never reach consumers, because the “cult of perfection” demands perfectly shaped peppers and blemish-free apples, says the Guardian.

It’s no secret that good compost improves soil, but many urban juice joints don’t bother getting licenses to cart their leftover peels and pulp to local composters, either because it’s too expensive or because the scraps are too “wet and heavy” to be useful, says FERN contributing editor Elizabeth Royte in Modern Farmer.

One-third of the food grown in the world goes to waste, from causes that range from spoilage in the field to uneaten food at the dining table, according to a common estimate. A public-private partnership unveiled a standard format for measuring losses, with the dual goal of a more precise measurement of where losses occur and a spur to prevent waste in the future.

Companion bills in the House and Senate aim to reduce food waste by standardizing the food-date labeling now presented in a confusing array of phrases such as "sell by," "use by," and "expires on." The legislation by Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Chellie Pingree of Maine is backed by food processors, consumer groups, environmentalists and the leading food-gleaning charity.

“Ugly” fruits and vegetables might actually be more nutritious than blemish-free produce, says NPR. Scabs and scars on the skin are a sign that the plant fought off invaders, whether pests or fungus.

By investing $18 billion, America could decrease food waste by 20 percent and spur $100 billion in “societal economic value,” says a new report out by Rethink Food Waste Through Economics and Data.

Food waste "is essentially a $165 billion logistics, efficiency and consumer-education business opportunity," says GreenBiz, describing a research project by investment funds and a food-services giant.

In the state of Montana, milk has to be tossed twelve days after pasteurization even though it can easily last up to 21 days. Storeowners can’t donate the extra gallons to food banks either. In the new film “EXPIRED? Food Waste in America” a team of researchers from Harvard investigate Montana’s spilled milk.

Huge amounts of food are discarded each year, but "hardly anyone talks about what all that food waste is doing to wildlife," says Yale e360. The story points to "a growing body of evidence suggests that our casual attitude about waste may be reshaping the way the natural world functions across much of the planet.

An estimated 33 percent — some 78 million tons — of the U.S. food supply is wasted every year, including nearly a pound of food per day in every household. This in a country with some 44 million food insecure people. It’s also a climate problem; all the waste generates methane, a greenhouse gas more potent than carbon dioxide. Can’t we just send would-be-wasted food to hungry mouths? Unfortunately, our food system is notoriously inefficient, with waste found on farms, in grocery stores, schools, and our refrigerators.This special six-part series, produced in partnership with Inverse, looks at how data, technology, ingenuity, and common sense can be used to fight this waste. With all these ingredients, and a handful of worms, the solution may be within reach.