Blog 4 “Food Waste Wednesday”

Sam Oaken, from End Food Waste Australia shared some of the things they are doing to halve

Australia’s food waste by 2030 at the recent food waste summit put on by WasteMinz and NZ Food

Waste Champions 12.3.

Sam started his talk by sharing some staggering figures on food waste in Australia.

 $36.6 billion dollars of food is wasted every year

 7.6M tonnes of food is wasted every year – 70% of which is edible

 30% of food is not leaving farms

 52% of food waste is happening at the consumption end.

 Every $1 spent on reducing food waste returns a benefit of between $7-$21

 Ending food waste would reduce emissions by 8-10%

Along with reducing food waste, the aim is to eliminate food insecurity, create a healthier planet and

build a more sustainable, circular, and resilient food system for the future.

End Food Waste Australia are looking for solutions that go from the paddock to the plate.

Meaningful change needs a national coordinated response. They are doing this with:

 Sector Action plans – identifying sectors where there is a large volume of food waste and

developing workable actions by bringing interested stakeholders together

 Australian Food Pact – industry wide collaborations that take a holistic approach by thinking

about packaging and other sustainability issues, not just the immediate food waste.

Like the other presenters at the Food Waste Summit, Sam talked about the food system being

broken, which is why they are looking for system change and identifying actions that everyone

involved in the system can take to reduce food waste. And they haven’t left us, the final consumer,

out of the picture. The Great Unwaste is a nationwide programme gives people information and

tools to reduce food waste. It is similar to Love Food Hate Waste here in Aotearoa.

As Kaitlin Dawson from NZ Food Waste Champions 12.3 said we need to think about food as it was

meant to be, not the waste it became.