Friday Buffet

While there has long been composting activity in NYC, the Bloomberg Administration is launching a pilot program to try it on the municipal level. The pilot program will be on Staten Island, home to the massive (and closed) Fresh Kills Landfill.

Let’s hope the program succeeds despite State Island Borough President’s pessimism: “I think most people are not going to like it,” predicted Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro. “I doubt if it’s going to be successful.”

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The former Tory Environment Secretary urged that Britain ban the landfilling of food waste. I never thought I’d say ‘atta boy’ to a Lord, but here goes: Atta boy, Lord Deben!

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The amazing Farm to Family program of the California Association of Food Banks will channel 140 million pounds of fresh, but unmarketable produce to those in need in 2013. That illustrates a) the massiveness of California’s produce industry and b) the generosity of its growers.

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I love The Tiffin Project, happening in Vancouver. But I wonder if I can use the metal container to take home leftovers in addition to being a reusable take-out vessel.

 

February 15, 2013 | Posted in Composting, Environment, Farm, Food Recovery | Comments closed

Borderlands Bienvenue

I’m in Arizona now, for a class visit and book reading at the University of Arizona, where I learned about this neat community food recovery venture. But, excitingly, this trip is also an opportunity to do some research.

Thanks to the assistance of the inimitable Gary Nabhan, I will finally get to the Mexican border at Nogales. I’ve wanted to visit there for years, after hearing about the myriad ways the border crossing causes waste.

In addition, to understanding why there’s so much food wasted at the border, I will get to see a dynamic non-profit doing their best to reduce that waste. Borderlands Food Bank rescues 30 to 40 million pounds of produce per year and redistributes that healthy food to food banks many states away, as supply and perishability allow.

I’ll hope to learn more in the next few days, on both sides of the border, and will be writing up what I find. Stay tuned…

February 12, 2013 | Posted in Personal | Comments closed

Estonia Brainstorm: Just Did It

I spent a few days last week with about 50 other sustainability thinkers and doers on snowy, secluded Muhu Island in Estonia. We were there as part of the Clean World Brainstorm, an offshoot of the Let’s Do It! organization.

Why Estonia? Because that’s the home of Let’s Do It!, which got its start by literally cleaning up an entire country in one day—as depicted in this impressive video.

For our brainstorm, the organizers’ brave plan was to have no plan. To simply get a bunch of diverse people together and see what happened. There was some hope of crafting a 1,000 Day Plan for a Cleaner Planet. The latter part fell by the wayside, after some hard discussions. But something positive emerged from some hard discussions. The group members, from a variety of backgrounds and professions, workshopped and polished five key sustainability action items. They were:

-Video games/apps to push waste reduction and clean ups.
-“Garbage-Free Gourmet”—a toolkit for hosting zero-waste dinners (with a plan to avoid food waste, of course!)
-A ‘Refuse to Use Disposable Plastic’ campaign
-A ‘Leave Excess Packaging at the supermarket plan
-A plan to encourage tap water usage and minimize bottled water

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More personally, I led a discussion on food waste to learn best practices from other nations and come up with a few key solutions that Let’s Do It! might push. Here’s a summary of what we found:

Existing Solutions
-EU association of local authorities has pilot program precooking and cooling school food to be more flexible. This allows more customization of meals to encourage more consumption of food and more donating unserved food.
-Using natural food coloring to make school lunch food look more exciting for school children.
-Retailers selling food items in customizable amounts, especially perishable items and items needed in small quantities for recipes.
-Retailers discounting soon-to-expire goods and making them visible to consumers, either with yellow stickers or moving them to a discount section.

Potential Solutions
-School food → compost → school garden → school food
-Recovered food public cooking demonstration and communal meal
-Zero Food Waste certification/participation for restaurants and retailers (with sticker to put in the front window)
-Campaign advocating use of reusable containers for restaurant leftovers (possibly with LDI branding)
-Education outreach to clarify/educate on expiration dates.

February 4, 2013 | Posted in Environment, Personal, Waste Stream | Comments closed

Visiting Food Bank Estonia

I am currently in Estonia for the Clean World Brainstorm organized by Let’s Do It! I’m honored to be one of 50 or so waste thinkers from around the globe here to brainstorm about how to reduce waste and clean up the planet. I’ll report back on our progress in a few days.

Yesterday, though, I had the chance to visit with Food Bank Estonia (Eesti ToiduPank) in Tallinn. It was a neat opportunity to see a burgeoning food redistribution group (operating for almost 3 years) in a part of the world where food banks haven’t traditionally existed.

In addition to touring their headquarters, I participated in a seminar on global and local food waste with representatives from the Ministry of Agriculture and the City of Tallinn. All parties seemed interested in further cooperation, and there’s potential that one or both agencies will push to reduce food waste.

Meanwhile, I learned a great deal about food waste in Estonia. As in many places, there’s a generation gap here. Younger Estonians, familiar with relative prosperity, waste food without much thought. Being a former Soviet bloc nation, that divide is even sharper–as the population who experienced food shortages during the Soviet era have a deeper appreciation for food. But, one waste-inducing consequence of that period is a desire to stockpile or experience abundance simply because food is so available.

And as we see in most nations, expiration dates cause much food waste in Estonia. The confusion over terms (some of which have slightly different meanings) and the relative uselessness of date labels in general are problems. Meanwhile, poor storage, mostly with potatoes, is a major cause of food loss.

One sobering statistic: There are roughly 200,000 Estonians who don’t get enough to eat (about 15% of the population–just like the US). And there are roughly 200,000 tons of food wasted annually in Estonia. Even I can calculate that that means there *could* be 1 ton of food redistributed to each needy citizen.

By rough comparison, there are 49 million hungry Americans and about 33 million tons of food wasted in the US. So there’s arguably more of a need for Food Bank Estonia to exist than any of its US counterparts. Good thing it does.

January 30, 2013 | Posted in Food Recovery, International | Comments closed

Getting Grocery Rite

This week, while at the Sustainable Foods Summit in San Francisco, I learned more about what the largest supermarket chains and food manufacturers are doing to reduce food waste through the FMI/GMA Food Waste Reduction Alliance. As you can see from this page and their slides (download), the initiative is encouraging and ongoing.

On the other end of the spectrum, a couple of smaller markets are providing inspiration through their different models. I had the chance to visit Bi-Rite Market, a Mission  mainstay that is as innovative as it is ingrained in the neighborhood.

Bi-Rite is a nimble operation, able to repurpose many of their blemished or approaching expiration goods into prepared foods. Bruised fruit goes across the street to their bakery/ice cream shop. Unsellable veggies and meat are incorporated in the in-store meals. The same goes for when the store might overorder or have a glut of any perishable product.

Feeding employees in the staff break room is another way Bi-Rite repurposes its unsellable products. These would be some of the day old baked goods and fruit that dropped on the floor, etc. And finally, the store has found a way to close the loop by using kitchen scraps, old bread and expiring milk to feed the hogs on the store’s Sonoma County farm. Pork from the farm is then sold (and also cooked) at Bi-Rite.

Meanwhile, in Austin, site of the Year of Food Waste Prevention and Recovery, a 6-month-old store called in.gredients has taken the dramatic step of being packaging free. And hidden in a recent blog post on food waste, they announced that in their first half year, they sent zero pounds of food waste to the landfill by reusing, composting and recycling that food.

While the smaller operators are doing amazing work, all three models are laudable. It’s much harder to steer massive operations (and ones with shareholders, etc.) toward sustainability. While change in the mainstream supermarket industry will come slower, it has nearly limitless potential reach. So here’s to change in any way, shape or form!

January 25, 2013 | Posted in Composting, Repurposing, Supermarket | Comments closed

This Just In: Think. Eat. Save

Exciting News: The UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the UN Environmental Program and several other partners have joined forces to create Think. Eat. Save, a one-stop shop for your anti-food-waste needs.

The global campaign kicked off on January 22, and it aims to accelerate awareness and action on food waste. It’s always encouraging to see new campaigns launch and this is no exception.

The site has tips, facts, reports and more. It is an information sharing hub, and will no doubt raise awareness and galvanize popular opinion on food waste reduction.

January 23, 2013 | Posted in International | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

Interesting that this Deseret News article focused, at least at the start, on the ugly food/cosmetics facet of food waste.

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Funny, this Voice of America segment on food waste doesn’t exactly sound like the voice of America. But it’s a nice video review of the recent IME report

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Speaking of the IME report, here’s a wonkish take on it, courtesy of the Washington Post’s Wonkblog. Here’s another solid, wonkish take on the study.

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America wastes 2 tons of food annually? Well…it’s more like 35 million tons. I think they meant 2 billion tons, which refers to global food waste.
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Finally, here are four detailed tips on how you can reduce home food waste, courtesy of CNN’s Eatocracy blog.

January 18, 2013 | Posted in Friday Buffet | Comments closed

Austin’s Año Against Food Waste

Late in December, the Austin City Council declared 2013 the Year of Food Waste Prevention and Recovery in Austin, Texas. It doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, but it’s encouraging and important because:

Whereas, America wastes 40 percent of its food; and

Whereas wasted food has negative environmental impact and represents a lost opportunity to feed the growing number of hungry Americans and Texans (opinion varies on whether these are separate categories); and

Whereas, we can reduce food waste dramatically with awareness and action; and

Whereas, a large portion of edible-but-sellable food formerly wasted can be recovered with a little effort; and

Wheras I love proclamations;

Now Therefore, Be It Resolved That Austin is to be commended for their nearly unprecedented creation of a year of food waste prevention and recovery.

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On a slightly larger scale, the European Commission had planned to make 2013 the European Year Against Food Waste, but they have pushed it back to 2014. Other than that, I can’t think of any similar declarations. So take a bow, Austin and all those who worked so hard to make this happen. I proclaim that this resolution rocks!

January 16, 2013 | Posted in Food Recovery, Legislation | Comments closed

A Cucumber’s Tale

This Wall Street Journal video provides a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the journey to bring Indian produce from farms to consumers.

In making this vicarious trip along the supply chain, we glimpse some less-than-ideal handling practices. From unrefrigerated (and often uncovered) transport to bumpy roads to poor storage, the video illustrates the differences between the food chain in developing and developed nations. (For the latter, imagine refrigerated tractor trailers zooming down a national highway system.)

And to a lesser degree, the video highlights the difference between loss and waste. The former happens due to factors out of human control, not within it.

While watching the WSJ video, we can almost fathom its opening statistic: more than one-third of Indian produce “rots before reaching ever consumers.” (Note: this comes from the IME study’s finding that 40 percent of Indian fruits and vegetables are lost between grower and consumer). This squandered food represents a $12 billion loss and a wasted opportunity in a land with rampant hunger.

January 14, 2013 | Posted in International, Storage | Comments closed

Half Wasted: Headline Review

In reporting yesterday’s big news that 30 to 50% of global food isn’t eaten, many headline writers focused on the higher figure. Here’s a quick roundup to see how various media organizations approached that age-old battle: attention vs. accuracy

Misleading

Huffington Post UK

Los Angeles Times

Australian Broadcasting Company

The Globe and Mail

Daily Mail

Smart Planet

Mixed Bag (misleading headline but prominent mention of the 30 to 50% estimate)

Huffington Post

The Telegraph

Spot On

CBS News

The Guardian

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Related: The BBC has a good piece on the discussion prompted by the IME study (and even changed their “half” headline from yesterday).

January 11, 2013 | Posted in International, Stats | Comments closed