On Monday last, Vice Media published an interesting story in its Lifestyle section about a Danish restaurant manager who sourced all of her food from supermarket dumpsters in 2024 and as a result only had to spend US$99 at the grocery on other items for the entire year. This waste-saving endeavour, which she began four years ago when she lived in Australia, and faithfully documented on Instagram, has earned her equal amounts of vitriol and plaudits. Those who poured scorn called her actions insane and unhealthy. Shrewd commenters praised her contribution to highlighting what is an abysmal global issue and doing her part to curb food waste.
A point worth noting is that although this woman’s dumpster diving is not a result of need, but activism to bring awareness to food waste and loss, she managed to save thousands of dollars while rescuing perfectly edible items that would otherwise have ended up in a landfill. Nor is this a one-off. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of people all around the world who make it their duty to salvage useful items – not just food – from bins and dumpsters before they are taken to landfills where contamination is likely to occur.
While supermarkets and markets in general are responsible for a lot of food wastage, they are not the biggest or only culprits. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), about a third of the food produced globally is lost post-harvest and pre-consumption, the latter referring to purchasing rather than consuming. Poor or inadequate storage, inefficient transport (including shoddy farm-to-market roads and unavailability of proper trucks and boats) and inept pricing, lead to post-harvest, pre-consumption spoilage and/or dumping.
These failures produce a double whammy as they also serve to impoverish farmers. This is so clearly a path to food insecurity that it might as well be lit by floodlights. Yet many governments have been slow to tackle these problems at the root. The FAO has been employing technical expertise to help farmers to reduce food losses incurred during the harvesting and before retail stages, including training on better handling, sorting and packaging. However, the buck stops with governments as they have to provide the necessary support to ensure that these practices do not disappear once the experts leave.
Meanwhile, the United Nations Environmen-tal Programme (UNEP) estimates that 19 percent of food produced globally is wasted at the retail, food service and household levels. In total, it believes that annually, around the world, over US$1 trillion worth of food is wasted. Unfor-tunately, given current trends, the UN’s Sus-tainable Development Goal (SDG) 12: Responsible Con-sumption and Production, which includes halving “per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduc[ing] food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses” by 2030 is not on track to be met.
Produce sorting for wholesale and retail sale is one of the means by which fresh, unspoilt food ends up being discarded; only the best-looking fruits and vegetables are selected. There are a few global chains that have a policy of donating unwanted food to charitable organisations for free distribution, soup kitchens and other feeding programmes. Others, too many of them, prefer the finality of the dumpster. There are even some stores that prohibit any foraging in their trash; going as far as to lock dumpsters or place security guards to deter seekers.
In some food service companies, hotels, and restaurants staff members are permitted to take home any excess or items close to their use-by dates. In others they are only allowed what they can consume on the premises and management ensures that what is thrown out is mixed with dirt to prevent them from accessing it.
Very often, at the household level, except among the poorest families, fruits and vegetables that are purchased, spoil before they can be eaten. Overly large meals are also prepared, particularly during festive occasions when people embrace the myth that overabundance or a lavish spread denotes happiness. Often, copious leftovers are eventually thrown out.
By horrible contrast, up to 783 million people in the world are affected by hunger. The once overused, ‘there are hungry children in Africa’ line, in fact relates to the entire world. A cursory glance at the news reveals that outside of Africa, children are struggling with hunger in Syria, Gaza, Haiti, Afghanistan, and the US, to name a few places. Scrutinise your environment as well; there are children who are hungry in Guyana.
Here, longstanding problems persist despite the promises made with regard to Caricom’s 25 x 2025 policy. Farmers still struggle to get their produce to markets. Rampant importation of food, including some produced here, has not eased. Therefore pricing issues and market gluts lead to dumping, while every week citizens bemoan their inability to provide. Yes, there is emphasis on more production and there have been private sector investments that can help address food insecurity. However, with there being no food loss or waste reduction strategy in place to balance out those efforts the prognosis is not so good.