Food Waste and Food Loss

Food waste reduction

Learning outcome

To raise awareness about the subject, the UN has declared the 29th of September as the “International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste”. In addition, the UN’s 12.3 target of the Sustainable Development Goals “calls for cutting in half per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer level, andreducing food losses along production and supply chains (including post-harvest losses) by 2030”.

This lesson aims to increase student understanding of food loss and waste issues and explore practical ideas to avoid them.

Students will

understand the differences between food loss and food waste.
learn about the damage caused by food loss and waste to the economy, environment and society.
recognise ways to reduce food waste.

Activity source:

FoodEducators, FoodEducators is an EIT Food programme that aims to promote healthy and sustainable food choices among young people and encourage them to be the agents of change that our food system needs. https://www.foodeducators.eu/resources/resource/food-waste-and-food-loss/

Time required

Duration: 45 minutes

Preparation time: short

5 minutes: Starter activity to connect students to the subject
7 minutes: Introduction: Background about food waste and food loss and its consequences.
25 minutes: Food Waste Quiz
7 minutes: Conclusion and reflection

Tools or equipment

A short video with five tips to reduce food waste.

Additional Resources:

Activity description

Starter Activity

(Slide 2 - see resource below)

The UN declared 29. September as the World Food Loss and Waste Awareness Day. Ask the students what they know about the loss or waste of food to gauge their initial knowledge and awareness.

Discussion in pairs around this issue:

(Slide 3)

Next week, the parliament will propose a law: creating a national day to prevent wasting food. Can you think about policies the parliament can propose during that day? Ask the students to discuss this with the student sitting next to them and then return to the class forum and elicit some representative answers.

(Ideas could include financial incentives for producers, financial support for farmers to modernise, food repurposing in store, national awareness campaigns, charging customers for plate waste in "all you can eat buffet", obligatory food donations).

In the additional sources section below, you will find several sources that contain information on policies, such as the EU Commission website.

Another optional starter activity to gauge initial student interest and understanding (appears on slide 4) asks the question: “Do you or your family members throw away food”?

Answers could be:

“Never”
“Sometimes, mostly leftovers from meals or parts that we have no use for, like potato peels.”
“Many times, meal leftovers, expired or spoiled, food that was not eaten and so on.”

To answer, students can either hold up a note with the numbers 1, 2 or 3. or you could use the Mentimeter platform.

When concluding the starter activity, it is advisable to point out to the students that loss and waste of food is a phenomenon that has gradually worsened throughout recent years, as will be discussed during the rest of the lesson.

Introduction to food waste and food loss

(Slide 5)

What is food waste and food loss - definitions

Food loss is all the crop and livestock human-edible commodity quantities that, directly or indirectly, completely exit the post-harvest/slaughter production/supply chain by being discarded, incinerated or otherwise, up to but excluding the retail level. Losses that occur during storage, transport and processing (including imported quantities) are therefore all included.

Food loss is when food becomes inedible because of factors outside of our control. For example, it could go mouldy before reaching the market, because roads to market were flooded for a week. Or the food could be eaten by rats because a farmer doesn't have access to the storage facilities they need. Most food loss happens in low-income countries, because facilities to store and transport food may not be available.

Food waste relates to food that was meant for consumption of people but for many reasons spoiled or was wasted and not eaten by human beings.

Food waste is more likely to happen in high-income countries. Food waste is avoidable. It could be when food goes in the bin prematurely. For example, edible food could be thrown away in a restaurant if we don't finish our plate. Food waste can also happen when food become inedible, but it didn't have to be that way. For example, if we had perfectly good food in the fridge that ended up going bad because we forgot to cook it, that would be food waste, not food loss.

Data

(Slide 6)

How much food is lost every year: Before showing the amount of food lost every year to the students, ask them to guess what they think the figure will be.

Answer: The data in the slide refers to the world (right side) and Europe (left side). Data is hidden under images that will disappear when clicking. The answer is a 30% food loss and waste globally per year, which is about 1.3 billion tons. Europe is slightly better, with only 20% food loss. This is because facilities to store and transport food tend to be more efficient in Europe than in lower-income countries.

Impacts

Slides 8-10 deal with the impact of food loss and waste and why students need to engage with it. Ask the students why they think we ought to care about food loss and waste.

Answer: food loss and waste affect three significant areas of our lives:

Economy

(slide 8)

Wasted food impacts household income, since we spend more money than we really need to. It also increases costs for the government and other institutions that need to collect, treat and dispose of wasted food. As well as the direct additional household costs for food purchased but not consumed, food loss creates costs throughout different stages of the value chain before consumption.The price of food reflects the cost of production and sales at every step of the value chain -agriculture, production, packaging, transportation and marketing. Therefore, supermarket food prices incorporate food losses. Similarly, wholesale food prices reflect the loss of food in agriculture and production. Ultimately, all the costs of food losses throughout the different stages of the value chain roll into the consumer’s pocket.

Society

(slide 9):

The social consequences of food loss and waste relate to food inequality and the difficulty of gaining adequate nutrition for a large proportion of the population. While a third of the food in the world is thrown away, over 820 million people around the world suffer from hunger or nutritional insecurity. (Nutritional security is a person’s ability to regularly provide, for themselves and their immediate family, healthy and nutritious food from all main food groups, of suitable quality and quantity, in socially acceptable ways).

Environment

(slide 10):

Reducing food waste and loss could also reduce pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and climate change. Food loss and waste is responsible for about 8% of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. This is important because greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide create a blanket in the Earth's atmosphere, leading to rising temperatures and the destabilisation of normal weather patterns. We need to drastically reduce our carbon dioxide emissions to maintain a safe climate The effects of climate change also threaten the food supply. For example, cocoa beans, cherries, apples, and many other foodstuffs are sensitive to rising temperatures and other climate change impacts.

Lesson Closure - Reflection

(Slide 33)

The lesson closure may begin with a question to the students about what they learned today.

Afterwards, you can conclude with the following points:

Food loss and food waste have economic, social and environmental consequences.
The leading cause of food waste (from agriculture, management and packaging, production, distribution and consumerism) is household consumerism.
Simple steps may be taken to reduce food waste (slide 19).

Presentation accompanying this activity can be downloaded here (after registration).