Food wastage awareness campaign

About Food wastage awareness campaign

Who We Are

Our Mission

Who We Are

We are a group of passionate students from Oshwal Academy Mombasa, in Year 11, who are devoted to our planet Earth and are relentlessly involved in the battle against food waste both inside and outside of our community.

Our Vision

Our Mission

Who We Are

At FWAC, we envision a time when all restaurants follow a zero-waste policy. We see a shift in which customers are informed and make responsible decisions. Food waste is a figment of the past in the future ahead of us. One meal at a time, together, we can accomplish this.

Our Mission

Our mission at FWAC (Food Waste Awareness Campaign) is to shed light on the pressing issue of food wastage, specifically in restaurants. We aim to do this by educating the public as well as the restaurants themselves about the shocking levels of food waste coming from them. Through this campaign we strive to reduce the waste products and

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SECONDARY RESEARCH

Considering the pressing need to address food wastage in an effective manner, and acknowledging the alleged 258 million people across 58 countries that are currently suffering from acute food insecurity (Omer, 2024), it behooves us to look for the very root cause of food wastage and address it from its source.

To begin with, the origin of food wastage is birthed from the very farm the produce is cultivated in. A study conducted by Shukla (2022) suggests that a few natural factors such as pests, diseases, climate, water availability and natural disasters may be uncontrollable. Nonetheless, farmers more often than not allow food to just squander. A case in point is when farmers pick and choose the best size or shape of crop they want to put on the market, as Lifsey (2018) decry that she observed a farmer letting a large number of gorgeous berries lie on the ground because although the berries were ripe, their size did not fit the desired size for customers to purchase.

Moving on, the next stop where food is wasted is at its supply chains. Supermarkets waste a great deal of food, billions of pounds annually in the US alone, for reasons that are not unknown and could easily be reversed such as: consumers confusing best-before dates, searching for the best produce, purchasing oversized platters, as well as, not managing their food waste accordingly (Synoracki, 2021). Now tell me, couldn't these causes simply be addressed for the sake of preventing food loss?

Roughly 13 percent of food produced worldwide is lost between harvest and retail,

and 17 percent of food produced worldwide goes to waste in homes, restaurants,

and retail establishments combined (UN, n.d). The part of food that is lost from harvest up to, but not including, the retail level is called food loss. The part wasted at the consumer or retail level is referred to as foodwaste (UN, n.d).

Food loss happens:

At the farm: inadequate harvesting time, climatic conditions, practices applied at

harvest and handling, and challenges in marketing produce.

In storage: inadequate storage, decisions made at earlier stages of the supply chain

that cause products to have a shorter shelf life.

In transit: Good infrastructure and efficient trade logistics are key to preventing food

loss. Processing and packaging play a role in preserving foods, and losses are often

caused by inadequate facilities, technical malfunction or human error.

Food waste happens:

In the shop: The causes of food waste at the retail level are linked to limited shelf life,

the need for food products to meet aesthetic standards in terms of colour, shape and

size, and variability in demand.

In the home: Consumer waste is often caused by poor purchase and meal planning,

excess buying (influenced by over-large portioning and package sizes), confusion

over labels (best before and use by) and poor in-home storing. (UN, n.d)

The sustainability of our food systems is threatened by food loss and waste. All of

the resources necessary to produce the food, such as labour, capital, water, land,

and energy, are wasted when food is lost or wasted. Furthermore, throwing away

food waste and losing it in landfills releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere,

intensifying climate change. Food loss and waste can also raise the price of food and

have a detrimental effect on food availability and security (UN, n.d).

Now, let us move to the primary subject of our project, which is the causes of food waste in restaurants specifically. Here, both the restaurant and the diner could play a significant role in causing food waste. In many cases, there is overproduction in restaurants due to the ongoing need to have more food than required during serving hours—particularly for buffets (Mettler, 2023). That aside, restaurants are notorious for allowing food to get spoiled through insufficiently refrigerating items or not storing food properly (Guinn, n.d). On the other hand, food waste can also stem from the customers who are ordering the food. This is evident in cases of diners ordering excessively when they are really hungry, or just having a habit of leaving leftovers behind and not asking for takeout (Brister, 2023).

In support, Chinese people have a culture of ordering way more food than necessary at restaurants and the more food not eaten signifies that the host is more gracious and sophisticated which is larger for bigger events. A study carried out in 2018 concludes the amount of food wasted at restaurants is 93 grams per person per meal, which is around 12% of food that was served (Wong, 2022). Similarly American chains are known for having huge scandals when employees reveal the amount of food being wasted. A viral tiktok video showed an employee throwing away hundreds of perfectly consumable donuts into the bin before closing. After the video gained millions of views other employees from different restaurants started coming forward anonymously revealing the same thing happens where they work if not worse (Roberts, 2021).

Food loss has its consequences, both environmentally and economically. When food is wasted, all valuable resources are lost such as water, land and energy used to produce the food (Lewis, 2024). This contributes to issues like deforestation, water scarcity, and greenhouse gas emissions on the environment. Food loss can have significant impacts economically. Food that is wasted means that all the money, time, and effort invested in producing, processing and distributing the food goes to waste too. This leads to financial losses for farmers, producers, and businesses in the food supply chain (Lewis, 2024).

Global food loss and waste account for one-third of the food produced for human

consumption. This is equivalent to 1.3 billion tonnes annually, worth almost US$1

trillion. A two billion person population could be fed with all the food produced but

never consumed. That is more than twice as many undernourished people as there

are in the world(WFP, 2020).

According to the 2023 edition of the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World

report, between 691 and 783 million people faced hunger in 2022, representing an

increase of 122 million people compared to 2019. In addition to hunger, the report

notes that 900 million people had severe food insecurity and 2.4 billion people had

moderate or severe food insecurity. Over 3.1 billion individuals were unable to pay

for healthy food(UN, n.d).

Reducing food loss and waste helps combat climate change and poverty and

hunger. Given that food loss and waste today account for 7% of global greenhouse

gas (GHG) emissions and that over 30% of the world's agricultural land is used to

produce food that is eventually never consumed, the damage caused by climate

change will be lessened(UN, n.d).

Now that you have some knowledge on the significance of our project lets come together as students to take action on this large scale disaster by signing the petition above.

Refrence list

Brister, E. (2023, December 26). Causes of food waste in restaurants. IntelliDigest. https://intellidigest.com/food-serving/causes-of-food-waste-in-restaurants/

Guinn, J. (n.d.). Toast learn - education for restaurants | toast pos. What are the top causes of restaurant food waste? https://pos.toasttab.com/blog

Lifsey, H. (2018, April 20). 5 reasons for food waste on the farm. Successful Farming. https://www.agriculture.com/family/women-in-agriculture/do-farmers-have-food-waste-on-the-farm

Lewis, J. (2024, March 4). How does food waste affect the environment?. Earth.Org. https://earth.org/how-does-food-waste-affect-the-environment/

Mettler, A. (2023, September 30). Food waste in restaurants: What we know - fourth. NOAM. https://www.fourth.com/article/how-much-food-restaurants-waste

Omer, S. (2024, March 21). Global hunger: 7 facts you need to know. World Vision. https://www.worldvision.org/hunger-news-stories/world-hunger-facts

Roberts, A. (2021, May 23). Dunkin Donuts worker goes viral after TikTok exposes food waste. Trending. https://popculture.com/trending/news/dunkin-donuts-worker-viral-tiktok-expose-food-waste/

Shukla, N. (2022, March 21). Food waste on farms and its environmental impacts. Earth.Org. https://earth.org/food-waste-on-farms/#:~:text=Food%20waste%20is%20a%20global,chain%20itself%2C%20which%20are%20farms.

Synoracki, O. (2022, September 8). 6 reasons why we waste so much food (and how we can stop). Conservation Law Foundation. https://www.clf.org/blog/why-we-waste-food/

United Nations. (n.d.-a). Background - food waste and loss reduction. United Nations. https://www.un.org/en/observances/end-food-waste-day/background

United Nations. (n.d.-b). Food loss and waste reduction. United Nations. https://www.un.org/en/observances/end-food-waste-day

United Nations. (n.d.-c). Food. United Nations. https://www.un.org/en/global-issues/food

In addition, we also got our Head of Economics who has a masters in Environmental Economics to testify:

"I, as an economics teacher, fully support and believe in the importance of signing the petition created by these students. It addresses the urgent issue of food waste in restaurants and encourages them to donate surplus food as part of their social corporate responsibility. This initiative not only helps combat food waste but also promotes a more sustainable and responsible approach to business practices. I highly recommend signing the petition and supporting this cause."- Beatrice Ochieng