Globally a third of the food produced from farm to fork is wasted. This is hard to take when we know how hard our farmers work and how many families struggle with food insecurity. Even more surprising is learning food loss and waste contributes to 8% of global greenhouse emissions.
But food waste is not just an overseas issue. While food waste occurs at all stages of the supply chain, the largest proportion of food wasted in New Zealand comes from households. A Rabobank and Kiwiharvest 2023 self-reported study suggests Kiwis throw out over 100,000 tonnes of perfectly good food each year. This equates to around $3.2 billion of food wasted annually, per household that about $1,510 of food thrown out!
However, it’s heartening to know that reducing food waste can contribute to a number of positive environmental, social, and economic outcomes.
The benefits of reducing food waste
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New Zealand’s yearly food waste produces 409,234 tonnes of carbon emissions. To offset this we would need to take 150,453 cars off the road for one year or plant 163,693 trees.
Reducing food waste helps lower our greenhouse gas emissions, including emissions in the food production process, as well as emissions from the decomposition of food waste in landfills.
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One in five children in New Zealand live in households experiencing moderate to severe food insecurity.
Redistributing good quality, surplus food to those who need it can have a positive impact on food security and community resilience.
Businesses and households can save money, through better resource efficiency and planning.
How we’re playing our part
Outside of inefficiencies in the food supply chain, there are two main reasons why Kiwis throw away food: we don’t eat our leftovers and some food goes bad because it is not stored properly. Along with educating the foodservice industry on the benefits of food waste reduction, these are the two areas that we are focusing our advocacy on.
Leftovers - Value your food, it’s worth it.
It takes a lot of effort to feed your family and leftovers are a great way to ensure that none of that hard work goes to waste.
To help celebrate the International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste Day 2021, we collaborated with Love Food Hate Waste to produce a public-facing education campaign to help Kiwis make the most of leftovers.
This saw us head to Mangarara Family Farm to film a video that sought to link the effort - both on-farm and in the kitchen - that goes into producing the food that we love.
In support of this, we launched a leftovers recipes tab on recipes.co.nz which now features over 50 recipes to help inspire Kiwis to do more with their leftovers. This section also included a series of eight instructional articles covering everything from food waste reduction tips to making your meat go further.
Sustainability in the Kitchen
24,372 tonnes of food waste is generated every year by restaurants across New Zealand with the average cafe or restaurant generating approximately 2.8 tonnes of food waste a year. Yet 61% of this is considered avoidable.
In order to educate and inspire the foodservice industry, we interviewed Greg Piner, head chef of No.7 Balmac about how to run a busy restaurant while keeping sustainability and reducing food waste front of mind. He offered advice on how monitoring things like preparation waste, plate waste, and food spoilage can help divert food waste away from landfills.
Head over to our foodservice-facing website, thechefskitchen.co.nz to learn more.
Supporting Food Rescue
One in five children in New Zealand lives in households experiencing moderate to severe food insecurity. Redistributing good quality, surplus food to those who need it can have a positive impact on food security and community resilience. Nationwide food rescue organisation KiwiHarvest works to reduce the negative impacts of food waste on our environment by redistributing excess food; helping to create lasting positive social change by nourishing those in need.
In 2021 we supported them through a special fundraiser, the ‘Master & Apprentice' dinner held as part of Dine Dunedin. The event featured two Beef + Lamb Young Chef finalists Ashley Knudsen and Lyall Minhinnick, as well as Beef + Lamb Platinum Ambassador, Michael Coughlin, and No7 Balmac’s Greg Piner.
As well as raising vital funds for KiwiHarvest, the event offered an opportunity for Dunedin foodies to experience how rescued food can be used to create mouth-watering dishes. You can learn more about the event here.
Food Waste Champions
As an industry body, from farm to fork, we don’t want to see any red meat wasted, along with all the other nourishing food our farmers across New Zealand produce. We want to see less beef and lamb going in the bin – instead, we want to see it nourish New Zealanders, save them money and do one small thing to address climate change.
We champion food waste reduction and support the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal, 12.3, to halve global food waste by 2030.
Here’s how our journey has progressed so far:
In March 2021 we attended the inaugural New Zealand Food Waste Summit
On International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste (IDAFLW), 29th September, 2021 in collaboration with Love Food Hate Waste, we launched a food waste campaign titled ‘Value your food, it’s worth it.’ - see video above. We have continued to acknowledge IDAFLW since.
Through Nose-To-Tail Month, we are promoting nose-to-tail eating as a way to minimise waste and eat thoughtfully and respectfully.
We’ve shared the NZ Food Waste Champions 12.3 ‘Food Waste Reduction Roadmap’ with our foodservice database of restaurants to provide food waste solutions for hospitality.
We started and have continued to incorporate food waste reduction tips with new recipes and grown the number of recipes on our leftovers recipes tab on www.recipes.co.nz.
We supported the University of Auckland to conduct meat waste research with independent butchers across New Zealand and have provided input to current research being conducted.
Through our consumer social media platforms we share tips to reduce food waste.
We’ve partnered with Love Food Hate Waste on recipes.co.nz to provide more food waste reduction recipes. We’ve also supported their ‘Food Waste Action Week - Choose what you Use’ and their 2024 ‘Eat me First’ campaign.
Beef + Lamb New Zealand - From the Kitchen, has promoted participation in the New Zealand Restaurant Association’s Kai Keepers pilot programme.
