Francesca Goodman-Smith: Tackling the problem of food waste in supermarkets

By RNZ

The average New Zealand household sends nearly 10 times more food waste to the landfill per capita than supermarkets per capita, says an award-winning expert working in the field.

It is estimated that, globally, one third of all food produced is wasted. New Zealand is one of 193 countries that has ratified the UN Sustainable Development Goals which include reducing food waste by 50 percent over the next 10 years.

Francesca Goodman-Smith, director of food waste minimization, wrote her thesis at the University of Otago on the topic of food waste in supermarkets. She also volunteered with the KiwiHarvest food rescue organization, which distributes leftover food to those in need, and taught in the university’s pioneering food waste course.

He recently won the “Change Maker” category at the Sustainable Business Awards and was a finalist at the Climate Impact Awards.

Goodman-Smith has also designed an award-winning waste minimization program in all 135 Foodstuffs stores.

She told RNZ it “made her mouth drop” seeing the stark contrast between the need for food and the massive waste that is also happening.

She has taken an “official dumpster dive” and found that supermarkets had good systems for segregating waste, with 46 percent going to animal feed.

About 15 percent were sent to people in need through food rescue organizations.

Goodman-Smith said there was strong data related to food waste from supermarkets, households and the hospitality sector in New Zealand.

Households send 29 kg per capita per year to the landfill, for supermarkets it is 3 kg per capita.

“It’s not about blaming, but about opportunity.”

The ugly is good

He said he wanted to end the stigma of how the food looked on the outside (like some bruised apples) and how nutritious it was “and really changing the dial doesn’t have to look perfect. Overseas, they’ve recommended [for] ugly fruits and vegetables [to have a specific] section … [that] it’s one way of doing it. “

Some supermarkets do that in New Zealand and would like more to be adopted.

“Overseas, they recommend that imperfect-looking products actually be woven into normal economic lines, because actually that’s normalizing that not everything has to look perfect.”

Education and prices would be key to gaining more widespread acceptance, he said.

“That’s where a lot of these food waste issues come from – people are programmed to look at something and say, ‘That’s good and that’s bad.”

Goodman-Smith said that 1.3 billion tons of food is wasted annually around the world; in New Zealand, about 500,000 tonnes of food goes to landfill every year.

At Foodstuffs, the waste minimization program means every waste stream is measured. The chain’s supermarkets are diverting 85 percent of their food waste from landfills. Instead, the food is reused, recycled, or donated. The goal of food products is not to send any food waste to landfill by 2025.

Its main goal for 2021 is to focus on the waste that is still being produced, and it would look for technological solutions to optimize orders and verification dates.

“You’re refining your processes so much that the waste is designed outside of the system, rather than just assuming that some waste will be produced and then dealing with that in the end.”

The bread must be frozen

Bread was the number one product to waste in the home, he said, and should be kept in the freezer.

Carrots will last 10 times longer if people put them in an airtight container with a moisture-controlling paper towel.

Another tip for the longevity of the salad leaf bags was adding the paper towel, he said.

He recommended that people check out the Love Food Hate Waste campaign website for more tips on how to reduce food waste.

He said that Foodstuffs had also signed up to the New Zealand Plastic Packaging Declaration and as part of it was aiming for all store packaging to be reusable, compostable or recyclable by 2025.