Half of all food wasted

By Mark Halper | January 10, 2013

Dare to eat 'em. Crooked carrots are good, and good for you.

The world throws away up to half of its food according to an alarming report that blames consumers’ fussy preference for cosmetically appealing produce, supermarket promotions that encourage overbuying, and deficient storage, transportation and agricultural practices.

Between 1.2 billion and 2 billion metric tons of food - out of the 4 billion produced annually - never reaches a human stomach, the UK’s Institution of Mechanical Engineers says in Waste Not Want Not - Global Food Waste: Feeding the 9 billion.

“The amount of food wasted and lost around the world is staggering,” says Tim Fox, IME’s head of energy and environment. “This is food that could be used to feed the world’s growing population - as well as those in hunger today. It is also an unnecessary waste of the land, water and energy resources that were used in the production, processing and distribution of this food.

“The reasons for this situation range from poor engineering and agricultural practices, inadequate transport and storage infrastructure through to supermarkets demanding cosmetically perfect foodstuffs and encouraging consumers to overbuy through buy-one-get-one-free offers.”

The annual water wastage from growing discarded crops totals about 550 billion cubic meters, IME reports.