The amount equated to about $25 a household a week, out of a total average weekly food budget of $150 a week.
The total amount wasted each year is estimated by this research at $3 billion. Survey results were weighted to Statistics NZ household data to arrive at the estimate.
The study of 1000 NZ households by food company HelloFresh found cooked food comprised 30% of waste, closely followed by 27% uneaten produce.
The waste has also left a wash of guilt in its wake, with almost 80% of females reporting guilt at throwing food away, compared to an average of 73% of respondents.
The main reason given for the waste was a lack of meal planning, something predominant in single person households.
However, one silver lining from the covid lockdown was the 30% of households reporting a reduction in food waste as a result of the pandemic.
But the waste estimate is considerably greater than that made in earlier work by Love Food Hate Waste NZ, an initiative supported through the government’s waste minimisation programme.
Done in 2015, this work identified that about 160,000 tonnes of avoidable food waste is going to landfill every year, the equivalent to about $1.2b of food a year and sufficient to feed Dunedin’s population for three years.
This survey found beef and poultry totalled almost $100 million a year, while produce comprising potatoes, lettuce, apples, oranges and bananas was about $70m.
The produce estimate is about only a tenth of HelloFresh’s estimates of almost $800m, or 27% of the claimed $3b estimated waste.
But measuring household food waste has proven particularly problematic, with the Love Food Hate Waste group estimating the variance between 224,000t to 500,000t a year for households.
The difficulty has been compounded by NZ conducting relatively few deep studies on waste levels.
Differences between the figures comes down to different methodology, with HelloFresh respondents estimating their losses, while the Love Food Hate Waste estimates are based upon 1000 bin audits in 2015.
A spokesperson for Love Food Hate Waste says despite efforts by the organisation, total food waste going to landfills was estimated to have increased with population growth in the past five years.
The organisation is seeking funding in 2021 to conduct another detailed survey on waste.
“We believe we have a good case to get some more funding when the Climate Change Commission comes out with recommendations, this is one of the key areas emissions can be reduced,” they said.
Food waste in NZ is estimated to generate 326,000t a year of carbon dioxide emissions, the equivalent of annual emissions from 120,000 cars.
Globally food waste in 2011 was estimated to account for a third of all production, prompting the Target 12.3 initiative aimed at halving per capita global food waste at retail and consumer levels by 2030.
A 2008 study in NZ estimated organic waste including food comprised 28% of landfill content.
Emissions from global food waste are estimated to be the third largest source in the world, after the United States and China and four times greater than that produced by the aviation industry.
Food rescue company KiwiHarvest’s general manager Blandina Diamond says following the economic fallout of the covid pandemic, demand for food from food charities has soared.
“Latest figures suggest the new normal could see increases in demand from those facing financial hardship of 40% per annum,” Diamond said.
KiwiHarvest is saving 170,000-200,000kg of quality surplus food every month.
In 2020 The NZ Food Network was established to ensure surplus food was better targeted to needy families, and produce waste in particular was minimised.
The network aims to centralise the work being done by multiple agencies around the country, providing a common point for them to source food supplies.
High profile primary sector processors supporting the network include T & G Fresh, ANZCO Foods, Fonterra and Fresh Pork NZ.
