The Value of Kai
Our #EatNZKaitaki Michal Garvey, founder of the Foodprint App, goes deep, to share the back story behind her nationwide fight against food waste!
If you’re reading this, I’m going to make a bold assumption that you, like me, are a lover of food. Whether you’re a grower, a producer, a chef or simply an eater. I’d put myself in that last category as well as being a lover of sustainable food systems.
I remember first starting to learn about the impacts our food systems have on our environment when in high school. This prompted me to change some of my personal habits, including adopting a vegetarian diet. In addition, always felt guilty about wasting food, particularly when working in hospitality jobs (mostly in the USA) where my job required me to throw food in the bin, but it wasn’t until years later that I started to understand the full scope of the impacts wasting food has on Papatūānuku.
Generally speaking, I find that guilt that I had when, resonates with most people, but many struggle with making the connection between wasting food and the climate crisis. But in reality, it’s no surprise as food waste is a really complex and often hidden problem.
Our current food system allows for one-third of the food produced to be wasted.[1] This is due to a number of factors including overproduction, issues at harvesting, transport and distribution problems, the mentality that all fruits and vegetables must look a certain way and at the consumer level, buying too much and not eating our leftovers.
All of this while one in seven people on the planet experience food insecurity. Food insecurity is going to increase with population growth over the next twenty years, but this is not my area of expertise.
The majority of the food that’s wasted ends up in landfills. According to Ministry for the Environment, around 300,000 tonnes of food waste is sent to landfills in Aotearoa each year,[2] accounting for around 9% of total waste sent to landfill. Sending anything to landfill is bad for the environment. When food is sent to landfill, it doesn’t break down like it does if you compost it at home - a common misconception. Instead, it decomposes without oxygen, creating the harmful greenhouse gas, methane which contributes to climate change. Globally, food waste accounts for up to 10% of total greenhouse gas emissions[3], which is about twice as much as the aviation industry.
The team at Project Drawdown, a non-profit seeking to help the world reach “drawdown” on emissions, has identified reducing food waste as the number one action we can take to fight the climate crisis and keep warming to 2˚C. [4]
The United Nations, Sustainable Development Goals, also call on all nations to address food waste. Goal 12 is Responsible Production and Consumption and within it has Target 12.3 -
By 2030, halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses.[5]
Developed in 2015, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are the blueprint for achieving a better and more sustainable future for all. They address the global challenges we face, including those related to poverty, inequality, climate change, environmental degradation, peace and justice. The 17 Goals are all interconnected, and in order to leave no one behind, it is important that we achieve them all by 2030.
In addition to this contribution, wasting food is also a huge waste of the resources that have gone into making that food. Often we think things like “oh but it’s just one little bit” but remember we waste one-third of the food we produce and those perceived little bits add up, fast.
To grow food, you need land. About 1.4 billion hectares or 28% of the world's agricultural land is used to grow food that’s wasted[6]. That land needs to be topped with nutrient-rich soil. Yet every 5 seconds we lose a rugby field of soil is lost. Globally we’re on track to lose about 10% of crop yields by 2050[7]. This is from both soil degradation and erosion, but also due to changes in how we’re using the land.
In Pukekohe, about 50km south of the Auckland CBD, the rich food-growing soil, which has long been dubbed some of the best in the country, is now having houses built on it. This is an area where a lot of our potatoes, broccoli, carrots and onions come from. Housing is obviously desperately needed in this country, but my desire to see high-density housing better adopted in Aotearoa is a whole other piece. But the bigger problem is where are we going to grow the food for the people living in these new houses?
The World Resources Institute, an environmental think tank, estimates that inside the 1.3 billion tonnes of wasted food, is 45 trillion litres of water. This is while the UN says about 2 billion people don’t have access to safe drinking water every day. Thinking about bread, the world’s most wasted food item, Love Food Hate Waste says that a single loaf of bread requires about 1,125 litres of water.[8]
A considerable amount of fuel and energy goes into the harvesting, processing and transportation of food as well as creating its packaging. There’s human interaction at each of these stages, not to mention the cost.
Food waste happens at all stages of the supply chain from production to consumption. Food that exits the post-harvest supply chain is referred to as food loss[9]. While food waste refers to food that is wasted, ending up in landfill, compost or another waste stream at the retail and consumer stages[10]. Around 12% of total food waste occurs in the hospitality sector[11] and after speaking to many eatery owners in 2018, I realised that this sector had very few options for food rescue. Hospitality is often left out of traditional food rescue in part due to the logistics required and the inconsistency of what is available day to day. Understanding this, I realised there was a gap that I’d be able to fill with Foodprint
.
By engaging with our community to recognise food waste as a problem, and rather than keep it hidden and something we’re ashamed of, work together as a community, to solve it. I’m the first to admit that we alone are not going to solve the food waste issues in Aotearoa but play a part in a large, complex puzzle.
On the app, you’re able to purchase surplus and imperfect foods from local eateries, to prevent that food from being wasted. Not only are you preventing food waste, but supporting the businesses by allowing them to retain value in that food. Food ends up on the app for a myriad of reasons, including customer orders that aren’t collected, a rainy day, the food not being visually up to standard, approaching or just past its best before dates, food that is slightly smaller than it should be, or even broken cookies. There’s no reason any of this food can’t be consumed. By using Foodprint, our customers are empowered to take action against food waste.
We are currently operating with around 350 eateries across the Auckland, Waikato, Wellington and Christchurch regions. Our community of customers has grown to over 65,000 and collectively we’ve prevented over 70,000kg CO2-e. We look forward to continuing to grow our reach around the motu in 2023 and helping Aotearoa halve food waste by 2030.
[1] https://www.fao.org/3/i2697e/i2697e.pdf, pg 6
[2] https://environment.govt.nz/publications/separation-of-business-food-waste-snapshot-of-the-consultation
[3] https://wwfint.awsassets.panda.org/downloads/driven_to_waste_summary.pdf
[4] https://drawdown.org/solutions/table-of-solutions
[5] https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal12
[6] https://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/196402/icode/
[7] https://www.fao.org/about/meetings/soil-erosion-symposium/key-messages/en/
[8] https://lovefoodhatewaste.co.nz/food-waste/wasting-water/
[9] UNEP Food Waste Index Report 2021, pg 19, https://www.unep.org/resources/report/unep-food-waste-index-report-2021
[10] UNEP Food Waste Index Report 2021, pg 19, https://www.unep.org/resources/report/unep-food-waste-index-report-2021
[11] https://lovefoodhatewaste.co.nz/total-amount-food-wasted-nz/