Why 'best before' isn't best.
Our #EatNZKaitaki Baxter Neill shares his thoughts around food waste in the city of Wellington and how he believes if we all pitched in, we could change the world for the better.
How much food, not rotten fruit or mouldy bread but actual edible food do you think you throw away per week? A couple of veggies here and there, maybe half a kilogram? No. The average New Zealand household throws away 3.15 kilograms of edible food waste. Every. Single. Week.
Food waste makes up one-third of general waste in the Wellington Region (2). In 2017 the Greater Wellington Regional Council (GWRC) made a ten-year plan to reduce food waste by
1. Engaging more with the Enviroschool program
2. Educating the public by hosting zero-waste workshops
3. Giving “low waste initiative grants” that support minimal food waste activities.
This plan is a great way to educate the public and reduce food waste on a socioeconomic scale. I believe other councils in New Zealand and worldwide should follow suit. Not just as part of their climate change propaganda, but as actions happening now. Actions speak louder than words.
One of these private initiatives that received a grant from GWRC is a charity organization called ‘Everybody Eats’. Started in Auckland but expanded to Wellington in 2019 Everybody Eats is a charity restaurant using donated food from restaurants, food manufacturers and supermarkets, repurposing it into a three-course meal for, as the name suggests, everyone. The diners can pay as they feel or if they cannot afford it, pay nothing. The backbone of the charity is volunteers. Every Sunday, Monday and Tuesday to prep and serve the food. As I volunteer there, I get to see first-hand how much wastage there is just because the apple looks a little funny or the pear is not as big as it should be. In May 2022, Everybody Eats broke the two-tonne mark for food saved from landfills (3). Two tonnes of edible food that was going to be thrown out in one month and never thought of again. Two tonnes of food that could have gone to people that cannot afford a meal. Two tonnes of food that got saved from the landfill. The problem is not just big companies or hospitality services, its households too.
One of the most common reasons households throw out food is the ‘Best Before’ date. People do not know it, but there is actually a huge difference between a best before date and an expiry date. Expiry dates are often used on things like meat or fish, this means the food cannot be trusted to be safe to eat after this date. A best before date means the food is freshest and best eaten before this date but is still perfectly safe to be consumed past the best before date. Best before date confusion is the most common source of food waste. Suppose councils, governments, or supermarkets start educating the public about the different types of food expiry labels. We should have less trouble understanding, therefore, less household food waste. One of the main troubles households have with reducing food waste is they just think it is too hard!
When most people hear the term ‘sustainability’ they think of growing their own vegetables or going zero-waste. The majority do not have a problem with being sustainable, they just think it takes too much time and effort. The truth is, even the small things matter. As a household consumer, you do not have to go “cold turkey” and try and make every meal of every day of every week zero waste. Just trying to be conscious about how much food you are wasting can help a lot. Put your bread in the freezer if you do not think you can eat the whole lot before it starts growing mould. Keep your fruit in the fridge if you live alone so it lasts up to three times longer than sitting in a fruit bowl on the bench. Compost your vegetable peels (or even better, do not peel them at all! Vegetable peels have lots of good nutrients for your body). If I challenged you to cook a weeknight meal only using food you were going to throw out could you do it? It turns out, you probably could! Most families throw out enough edible food to last two meals a week. $1.17 billion worth of edible food gets thrown out in New Zealand every year (1). $1.17 billion of food is equivalent to the weight of two hundred and seventy-one jumbo jets or 2.4 million wheelie-bins which is more than the number of physical houses in Aotearoa (4).
Reducing food waste on a national or international scale isn’t so hard if we all just do our bit. It takes us all to achieve something of this scale. If councils, governments and households implemented the procedures I explained above, I believe it could change the world for the better.