8 ms·

Half of all US food produce is thrown away, new research suggests

68 points by vmateixeira 10y ago

dsfyu404ed 10y ago
Waste like this is basically a symptom of an inefficient logistics network and market conditions. The fresh fruit you see at the grocery store all "made the cut" what didn't make the cut became canned tomatos, apple concentrate, frozen hash browns and other more processed fruits. Nobody cares if a canned tomato looks lumpy. The problem is that the opportunities to redirect produce that doesn't pass QC are basically nonexistent after a pretty early part of the supply chain. Supply chain logistics are a mostly solved problem. This won't be fixed until the benefit outweighs the cost. The cost will most likely have to decrease for that to happen. A complicating factor is that produce optimized for one track (e.g. fresh apples) might perform more poorly if repurposed after failing QC (e.g applesauce) so in some situations it makes more sense to just discard stuff that doesn't pass QC late in the supply chain than to redirect it into role it's not optimized for. If it was more profitable to redirect stuff that doesn't pass QC then people would do it. Many restaurants already dispose of food waste separately and give it to pig farms. Pig farmer reduces feed cost and the restaurant reduces disposal costs.
- Bromskloss 10y ago
  > A complicating factor is that produce optimized for one track (e.g. fresh apples) might perform more poorly if repurposed What optimisations do you have in mind?
  - sp332 10y ago
    An apple bred to stay crisp for a long time on the shelf and give a nice crunch when you eat it might not make the best applesauce.
    - Bromskloss 10y ago
      Oh. I'm surprised that the difference is considered to be that great.
      - plorkyeran 10y ago
        In the case of apples it isn't (yet?) since there's plenty of good-tasting ones that are pretty durable to begin with, but for something like tomatoes I'd be disappointed if my canned tomatoes were the ones optimized for display rather than taste.
      - talmand 10y ago
        Growing up in the South it's fairly common to see that many people think that the fruit you won't eat from the hand, for whatever reason, are often better for certain recipes of desserts and preserves.
        Vexs 10y ago
        That's because it is. Different acid concentrations, cell walls strengths, etc lead to some apples being better suited for some things than others. Kind of like fillet vs strip, it's all the same meat, but very different, and cooks differently too.
      - sp332 10y ago
        Soft, sweet apples are better for pies. Maybe throw in a couple of crisp, tart ones for texture and flavor, but you probably wouldn't want to eat a pie with nothing but Granny Smiths.
        Bromskloss 10y ago
        That's curious. I specifically choose Granny Smith when making apple crumble! They are hard and almost sour when fresh, but are broken and humbled by the heat.
        sp332 10y ago
        Most pie recipes I've seen call for multiple varieties, especially from different categories http://frugalliving.about.com/od/foodsavings/qt/Best-Apples-For-Apple-Pie.htm http://frugalliving.about.com/od/foodsavings/qt/Best-Apples-... My grandmother used mostly Braeburn and Northern Spies, my mother uses Crispin and Granny Smith. I think a crumble might break down the apples more than a pie with its protective crust, so harder varieties might work better there.
mkane848 10y ago
"The demand for ‘perfect’ fruit and veg means much is discarded, damaging the climate and leaving people hungry" I mean, you can make a case for damaging the environment, but the thrown away food is hardly the reason people are hungry. We clearly don't have a shortage problem.
- alanwatts 10y ago
  >but the thrown away food is hardly the reason people are hungry. What is the reason?
  - talmand 10y ago
    From what I understand it's more of a delivery or logistics problem and its variations. Sometimes it's not worth it to certain people to deliver the food and in some cases someone takes the food before it arrives.
    - tim333 10y ago
      These days it's mostly an economic thing. Food's there but some people don't have money to buy it. http://www.worldhunger.org/2015-world-hunger-and-poverty-facts-and-statistics/#hunger-number http://www.worldhunger.org/2015-world-hunger-and-poverty-fac...
      - deadmik3 10y ago
        That link (at least, the section you linked because I didn't read the entire page) doesn't say anything about it being economic, it just gives the numbers and even goes to show that we've apparently been making progress in reducing world hunger. Also, it's kind of a good thing for economic causes to be producing excess. The other option is to be under-producing (because 100% efficiency is a pretty hard target to hit, you're either going to be over or under). If this was the case, it would drive food prices up. So even though there would be no waste, there would be even more want.
        10y ago
fulafel 10y ago
Food production should not be subsidized, and environmental negative externalities forced into prices, via taxes eg. (Ys, this would have to be compensated with more income transfers for the poor)
- vmateixeira 10y ago
  For sure this could be a solution. Unfortunately I see no way of this to happen.
thesehands 10y ago
"I would say at times there is 25% of the crop that is just thrown away or fed to cattle" One of these is waste, one not. Perhaps their definition of waste needs to be reviewed.
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  Yes feeding cattle excess (over demand) crops could be called recycling for instance. Get something of value out of it instead of e.g. burning it.
- eevilspock 10y ago
  It's a waste if that is not an efficient way to feed cattle. There's a reason we don't grow watermelons intentionally as cattle feed.
sandworm101 10y ago
>> Vast quantities of fresh produce grown in the US are left in the field to rot, fed to livestock or hauled directly from the field to landfill, Only one of those I would call "thrown away". Left in the field to "rot" is a form of fertilizer. Being fed to livestock, animals that would otherwise eat something else, equally isn't waste. These are products being put to good uses, perhaps not the most lucrative uses for which they were designed, but uses nonetheless. This is farmers recycling unmarketable product. It isn't waste. Only when product winds up as landfill, that is waste.
cprayingmantis 10y ago
I would say 10%-15% is lost to insurance fraud. A lot of times when the crop yield is less than 50% of expected yield farmers will just disc the fields and claim 100% loss.
- SteveNuts 10y ago
  Source? Do the crop insurance companies not go out and verify the claim? Do they not correlate crop loss with other events in the area (flooding, high winds)?
  - cprayingmantis 10y ago
    It was just conjecture on what I grew up around. They do go and verify the claim but most of the time they won't fault the farmers if the field is already reseeded after all they need to make sure the cover crop comes in good if the main crop failed. There's a lot of insurance fraud in agriculture mostly because the companies don't have the resources to go and check every farm. And to your final point they do correlate it to natural disasters, those events are rarely as catastrophic as they're reported though.
kazinator 10y ago
> scarred vegetables regularly abandoned in the field to save the expense and labour involved in harvest. So what? Most plants on the planet's surface are "abandoned in the field". Where I live, there are vast areas of blackberry bush. Most of it is not picked by humans. Oh, the annual waste! These vegetables will help fertilize the next crop. It's just not yield-efficient use of the agricultural surface area, that's all. There is an opportunity for someone who can figure out how to grow perfect vegetables: they can make as much profit using a small fraction of the farm size.
becauseracecar 10y ago
Why I subscribe to http://www.imperfectproduce.com/ http://www.imperfectproduce.com/
- antisthenes 10y ago
  Let me guess, it's CA only.
woodandsteel 10y ago
For thousands of years people ate produce that often had unevenly-colored skins, but tasted good. Food industry corporations have persuaded most people to instead eat produce that looks perfect but tastes worse. And they tell us that is progress.
Pica_soO 10y ago
make ethanol from it?
clifanatic 10y ago
Wow. I started growing my own vegetables a few years ago, and of course, I eat everything that I can successfully produce. However, I'm always struck by how much different my own tomatoes (for example) look than the ones that I can buy at the grocery store - mine are usually smaller, and cracked in a couple of places, but still perfectly edible. It made me wonder what "professional" farmers do with similar produce - I always assumed that they sold it to companies that made tomato sauce or something and sold the better ones to consumers. I never thought they'd throw away perfectly good vegetables.

68 points by vmateixeira 10y ago

Waste like this is basically a symptom of an inefficient logistics network and market conditions. The fresh fruit you see at the grocery store all "made the cut" what didn't make the cut became canned tomatos, apple concentrate, frozen hash browns and other more processed fruits. Nobody cares if a canned tomato looks lumpy. The problem is that the opportunities to redirect produce that doesn't pass QC are basically nonexistent after a pretty early part of the supply chain. Supply chain logistics are a mostly solved problem. This won't be fixed until the benefit outweighs the cost. The cost will most likely have to decrease for that to happen. A complicating factor is that produce optimized for one track (e.g. fresh apples) might perform more poorly if repurposed after failing QC (e.g applesauce) so in some situations it makes more sense to just discard stuff that doesn't pass QC late in the supply chain than to redirect it into role it's not optimized for. If it was more profitable to redirect stuff that doesn't pass QC then people would do it. Many restaurants already dispose of food waste separately and give it to pig farms. Pig farmer reduces feed cost and the restaurant reduces disposal costs.

Bromskloss 10y ago
> A complicating factor is that produce optimized for one track (e.g. fresh apples) might perform more poorly if repurposed What optimisations do you have in mind?
- sp332 10y ago
  An apple bred to stay crisp for a long time on the shelf and give a nice crunch when you eat it might not make the best applesauce.
  - Bromskloss 10y ago
    Oh. I'm surprised that the difference is considered to be that great.
    - plorkyeran 10y ago
      In the case of apples it isn't (yet?) since there's plenty of good-tasting ones that are pretty durable to begin with, but for something like tomatoes I'd be disappointed if my canned tomatoes were the ones optimized for display rather than taste.
    - talmand 10y ago
      Growing up in the South it's fairly common to see that many people think that the fruit you won't eat from the hand, for whatever reason, are often better for certain recipes of desserts and preserves.
      - Vexs 10y ago
        That's because it is. Different acid concentrations, cell walls strengths, etc lead to some apples being better suited for some things than others. Kind of like fillet vs strip, it's all the same meat, but very different, and cooks differently too.
    - sp332 10y ago
      Soft, sweet apples are better for pies. Maybe throw in a couple of crisp, tart ones for texture and flavor, but you probably wouldn't want to eat a pie with nothing but Granny Smiths.
      - Bromskloss 10y ago
        That's curious. I specifically choose Granny Smith when making apple crumble! They are hard and almost sour when fresh, but are broken and humbled by the heat.
        sp332 10y ago
        Most pie recipes I've seen call for multiple varieties, especially from different categories http://frugalliving.about.com/od/foodsavings/qt/Best-Apples-For-Apple-Pie.htm http://frugalliving.about.com/od/foodsavings/qt/Best-Apples-... My grandmother used mostly Braeburn and Northern Spies, my mother uses Crispin and Granny Smith. I think a crumble might break down the apples more than a pie with its protective crust, so harder varieties might work better there.

mkane848 10y ago

"The demand for ‘perfect’ fruit and veg means much is discarded, damaging the climate and leaving people hungry" I mean, you can make a case for damaging the environment, but the thrown away food is hardly the reason people are hungry. We clearly don't have a shortage problem.

alanwatts 10y ago
>but the thrown away food is hardly the reason people are hungry. What is the reason?
- talmand 10y ago
  From what I understand it's more of a delivery or logistics problem and its variations. Sometimes it's not worth it to certain people to deliver the food and in some cases someone takes the food before it arrives.
  - tim333 10y ago
    These days it's mostly an economic thing. Food's there but some people don't have money to buy it. http://www.worldhunger.org/2015-world-hunger-and-poverty-facts-and-statistics/#hunger-number http://www.worldhunger.org/2015-world-hunger-and-poverty-fac...
    - deadmik3 10y ago
      That link (at least, the section you linked because I didn't read the entire page) doesn't say anything about it being economic, it just gives the numbers and even goes to show that we've apparently been making progress in reducing world hunger. Also, it's kind of a good thing for economic causes to be producing excess. The other option is to be under-producing (because 100% efficiency is a pretty hard target to hit, you're either going to be over or under). If this was the case, it would drive food prices up. So even though there would be no waste, there would be even more want.
      - 10y ago

fulafel 10y ago

Food production should not be subsidized, and environmental negative externalities forced into prices, via taxes eg. (Ys, this would have to be compensated with more income transfers for the poor)

vmateixeira 10y ago
For sure this could be a solution. Unfortunately I see no way of this to happen.

thesehands 10y ago

"I would say at times there is 25% of the crop that is just thrown away or fed to cattle" One of these is waste, one not. Perhaps their definition of waste needs to be reviewed.

JoeAltmaier 10y ago
Yes feeding cattle excess (over demand) crops could be called recycling for instance. Get something of value out of it instead of e.g. burning it.
eevilspock 10y ago
It's a waste if that is not an efficient way to feed cattle. There's a reason we don't grow watermelons intentionally as cattle feed.

sandworm101 10y ago

>> Vast quantities of fresh produce grown in the US are left in the field to rot, fed to livestock or hauled directly from the field to landfill, Only one of those I would call "thrown away". Left in the field to "rot" is a form of fertilizer. Being fed to livestock, animals that would otherwise eat something else, equally isn't waste. These are products being put to good uses, perhaps not the most lucrative uses for which they were designed, but uses nonetheless. This is farmers recycling unmarketable product. It isn't waste. Only when product winds up as landfill, that is waste.

cprayingmantis 10y ago

I would say 10%-15% is lost to insurance fraud. A lot of times when the crop yield is less than 50% of expected yield farmers will just disc the fields and claim 100% loss.

SteveNuts 10y ago
Source? Do the crop insurance companies not go out and verify the claim? Do they not correlate crop loss with other events in the area (flooding, high winds)?
- cprayingmantis 10y ago
  It was just conjecture on what I grew up around. They do go and verify the claim but most of the time they won't fault the farmers if the field is already reseeded after all they need to make sure the cover crop comes in good if the main crop failed. There's a lot of insurance fraud in agriculture mostly because the companies don't have the resources to go and check every farm. And to your final point they do correlate it to natural disasters, those events are rarely as catastrophic as they're reported though.

kazinator 10y ago

> scarred vegetables regularly abandoned in the field to save the expense and labour involved in harvest. So what? Most plants on the planet's surface are "abandoned in the field". Where I live, there are vast areas of blackberry bush. Most of it is not picked by humans. Oh, the annual waste! These vegetables will help fertilize the next crop. It's just not yield-efficient use of the agricultural surface area, that's all. There is an opportunity for someone who can figure out how to grow perfect vegetables: they can make as much profit using a small fraction of the farm size.

becauseracecar 10y ago

Why I subscribe to http://www.imperfectproduce.com/ http://www.imperfectproduce.com/

antisthenes 10y ago
Let me guess, it's CA only.

woodandsteel 10y ago

For thousands of years people ate produce that often had unevenly-colored skins, but tasted good. Food industry corporations have persuaded most people to instead eat produce that looks perfect but tastes worse. And they tell us that is progress.

Pica_soO 10y ago

make ethanol from it?

clifanatic 10y ago

Wow. I started growing my own vegetables a few years ago, and of course, I eat everything that I can successfully produce. However, I'm always struck by how much different my own tomatoes (for example) look than the ones that I can buy at the grocery store - mine are usually smaller, and cracked in a couple of places, but still perfectly edible. It made me wonder what "professional" farmers do with similar produce - I always assumed that they sold it to companies that made tomato sauce or something and sold the better ones to consumers. I never thought they'd throw away perfectly good vegetables.