What Is Food Waste And How Does It Impact Our Communities
Around 30 to 40 percent of the United States’ food supply is wasted according to USDA estimations.
Food waste is an issue that affects the environment and people in poverty.
Sankalp Sharma is a professor of agribusiness at the Kent State Tuscarawas campus. He sees food waste as a problem that arises from two areas: retail and farming.
At the retail level, consumers purchase more food than they can realistically eat. This is especially true for perishable items such as fruits and vegetables because those will spoil at a faster rate than non-perishable goods.
Consumers tend to choose foods like fruits and vegetables off of aesthetics. This leaves edible food that is not as visually appealing to rot.
“If a scientist were to analyze their objective freshness, they’re probably the same but then the one on the left just appeals much better to people,” Sharma said. “It just has more attractive properties so people just tend to grab that the most.”
Consumers are also unlikely to buy the last item sitting on the shelf which encourages retailers to constantly have a large stock of food.
“There’s a perception of no one wanted this, why would I?” Sharma said. “So you will notice that retailers have adapted to this. They never leave a tray empty unless they absolutely have to.”
There is no easy fix for food waste at the retail level.
“Remember, Walmart has no incentive or Aldi’s or Buehlers has no incentive to market their products so that there is lower food waste,” Sharma said. “What they market for is to make money, as much as possible.”
On the other hand, farm-level food waste comes from the high cost to harvest and the low reward of selling. Hiring people to harvest food is expensive for farms. Occasionally that cost is greater than the profit earned back from selling the food.
“So they are going to not harvest their field and let the product rot and then eventually run a combine through it to get rid of that stuff and plant something new for the new season,” Sharma said.
One way around this waste is mechanizing the harvesting process as much as possible. Yet, automating harvesting is much easier for food that grows in a field rather than on trees.
“So unless there is a terminator shaped AI robot who can start plucking, it’s hard to mechanize that process,” Sharma said.
An issue that arises from food waste is the environmental degradation that comes with it.
Angel Arroyo-Rodriguez is an environmental planner for the Ohio EPA and is working towards a Ph.D. in regional planning related to food waste management. He views food waste as a contributor to climate change.
Food waste sitting in a landfill creates the greenhouse gas methane because it is unable to rot normally without oxygen, according to the EPA.
“Methane has about 25 percent the heat-trapping capacity as CO2 [which] makes this like a more significant or potent greenhouse gas,” Arroyo-Rodriguez said. “That’s kinda the biggest problem with food waste that it contributes to global warming.”
Planning meals ahead of time, using leftovers for other meals, and sharing excess food with neighbors are ways to prevent personal food waste from ending up in landfills, Arroyo-Rodriguez said.
“There are different circumstances and sometimes opportunities to reduce it are also different and what may work for many people might not work for others,” Arroyo-Rodriguez said.
For example, people in poverty may waste food because they do not have the same resources as others. They may buy food in bulk because it is cheaper and not be able to consume it all before it goes bad. They also may not have a refrigerator to keep food from rotting.
“I believe that most of the people don’t waste food because they want to waste food [that] they don’t care,” Arroyo-Rodriguez said. “It’s because they’re just so many other things going around that they don’t have any other option.”
Food sits in landfills while the amount of people left hungry grows.
Raven Gayheart is the Public Relations and Communications Manager at the Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank. She noticed an increasing need for food once the pandemic started.
“We’ve been seeing about a 30% increase in the amount of new families that are being served,” Gayheart said. “So these are people who have never needed to ask for help before, you know. They’ve typically have held a steady job [and] who’ve been able to pay their bills.”
During the early months of the pandemic, the food bank was at a 10 year low on their warehouse food supply because of supply chain issues and increased need.
“So that was kind of a whole different experience for our staff,” Gayheart said. “Figuring out how are we going to get all the food that we need to make sure the community has the food that they need to feed their families.”
The six most needed food items at the Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank are boxed cereal, peanut butter, canned tuna, canned vegetables, canned beef stew and canned soup.
The Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank combats food waste by partnering with local manufacturers, retailers and farmers and accepting their food donations. Last year, about 32.4 million pounds of food and other essential items were donated.
“So when we are getting food from these various donors, you know, we’re essentially rescuing perfectly edible nourishing food that would otherwise go to waste. It would go to a landfill,” Gayheart said. “So it means that we have the ability to feed families facing hunger and take a large step and protecting our planet, and conserving our resources.”
