Friday, March 29, 2024

Food waste strategy needed

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New Zealand needs to adopt a nationwide food waste reduction strategy as the country looks to recover from the impact of covid 19 and grapple the effects of climate change.
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Having such a strategy would positively impact both of these issues, NZ Food Waste Champions 12.3 coordinator Tessa Vincent said at the inaugural Food Waste Summit in Auckland.

The day-long summit brought together people from all sections of the food production chain, as well as academics and politicians to find solutions to reduce the amount of food wasted in NZ.

Vincent says covid -19 had highlighted both the fragility of NZ’s food supply chain and the value of food.

“We need to call on decision-makers to call on food waste reduction as part of our covid-19 recovery plan,” Vincent said.

Reducing food waste was also a key climate change solution. It was something everyone could do when they ate their dinner every night. Food waste reduction needed to be included in climate change strategies.

She says reducing food waste is a tangible climate change action where everyone had a role to play.

The organisation wants to halve NZ’s food waste by 2030. One-third of the food that is produced globally is wasted.

“That’s not good enough and such an issue requires people from all across the spectrum of the food supply chain to come together,” she said.

Otago University associate professor Miranda Mirosa says at this stage, it is unknown exactly how much food is wasted in NZ.

Mirosa authored a briefing to Parliament’s Environment Committee to investigate food waste in NZ that was published in March last year.

That report cited a 2016 Ministry for the Environment (MfE) estimation of 571,000 tonnes of food entering landfills nationwide.

It also said the National Food Waste Prevention Project estimated households sent 229,002t of food waste to landfills, of which 54% (122,547t) could have been eaten in 2014.

In dollar terms, this amounted to $872 million, or $563 per household, each year.

When food decomposes in landfills it releases methane and the 122,547t dumped in 2014 emitted an estimated 325,975t of greenhouse gases. The MfE estimate from 2016 estimated that more than 1.5million tonnes of emissions were produced.

Mirosa says that given NZ’s brand relied so heavily on its clean, green reputation, there was every reason to ensure food waste was kept to a minimum, particularly in primary production.

“Global estimates attribute between 21-36% of food loss in this first stage of the supply chain,” Mirosa said.

In Australia, that figure was estimated at 31%.

Food is lost in production from weather events as well as market conditions, which caused farmers to throw out edible food.

“If the price of produce in the market is lower than the costs of harvesting … then farmers are forced to leave these crops unharvested,” she said.

She says there are many opportunities for the sector to reduce waste.

“The New Zealand government needs to provide strong leadership in this area. It needs to invest in innovation to support initiatives that reduce food loss and waste,” she said.

One of these initiatives is establishing a voluntary commitment programme where businesses set targets and measured food waste.

Food producers also needed to look at further ways to expand and encourage food donations.

She says more schemes such as Meat the Need and Fairgrow are needed.

The sector also required more innovation and collaboration to reduce food loss and increase the amount of food that made it to market or to New Zealanders in need.

Consumers also needed to play their part in what they ate by choosing ‘imperfect’ produce or products made with recycled items or ingredients.

Labour list MP Angie Warren-Clark says the Government had started conversations around food waste in NZ and its link to climate change following the release of the briefing. 

The next step was to create a roadmap that looked at the country’s entire food system and where wastage solutions could be found along the supply chain. 

This map is expected to be released next month.

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