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The American food supply chain has a luxuriously high waste rate. It’s an issue that a few companies are trying to tackle, eg Imperfect Produce. Wasted food i
by mogadsheu 7y ago
The American food supply chain has a luxuriously high waste rate. It’s an issue that a few companies are trying to tackle, eg Imperfect Produce.
Wasted food in the home though is mostly a cultural/price issue, as well as a misalignment issue between seller and consumer. Grocery stores try and increase AOV by selling you a 3lb bundle of carrots because they believe it to be profit maximizing to do so, at the cost of deadweight loss borne by the customer if they don’t eat all that they buy.
- lame-robot-hoax 7y agoI believe it to also be caused by the huge amount of subsidies American farmers receive from the US government, pretty much incentivizing them to grow and sell as much food as they possibly can.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- benj111 7y agoCarrots seem like a poor example, they are literally meant to store over winter. Lettuce? Id struggle to eat 3lb of lettuce before it went off.
- galangalalgol 7y agoif we want to reduce waste switching to frozen instead of fresh would help. most wastage occurs on market shelves anyway. many foods are more nutritious when kept frozen until consumption. most even. but I have no answer for the aesthetics or texture.
- benj111 7y agoFrozen lettuce?
- galangalalgol 7y agotrue, I think I have had a frozen mix with arugula, but i think your point is that going frozen means giving up fresh salads an the like, which is both true and a sacrifice
- Scoundreller 7y agoWe do this with bread: but fresh and immediately freeze half. Leafy vegetables can be thrown into a stir fry or soup and kept a bit longer after being cooked. (Same principle: eat fresh at the beginning). That 3lb is 90% water anyway.
- galangalalgol 7y agoroot vegetables keep longer raw, do greens keep longer cooked? I wish someone would sell freeze dried greens and roots. we wouldn't ship around that water and it would keep forever with no refrigeration. drop it in the stew and go
- benj111 7y agoYou can get a dried veg and bean mix for stews in the UK, it isn't what i would describe as nice though.
- afarrell 7y agoIs ugly fruit/veg a significant cause of food waste? My understanding was that ugly fruit/veg gets turned into soup or sauces.
- gambiting 7y agoYeah there was definitely an article on HN some time ago explaining how the "imperfect" produce movement achieves exactly nothing - ugly fruits and veggies are used for other things, so to actually bring those to the stores you're not taking them from a supply going to waste - you're taking it from a supply that would be fully utilized anyway.
- gruez 7y ago>article I remember it was a Twitter rant edit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18954018 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18954018
- sureaboutthis 7y agoYou can do that but most home cooks don't make soups or sauces from scratch and don't know how.
- randomdata 7y agoHome cooks may not, but industry does.
- sureaboutthis 7y agoThe subject is wasted food at home.
- randomdata 7y agoThe subject of this thread is ugly fruit and vegetables. They don't make it into the grocery store, let alone all the way to ones home (in fresh form).
- rwmj 7y agoWhat is AOV? I've observed the same thing with groceries here in the UK too, and never understood how it benefits the supermarkets.
- sokoloff 7y agoAOV = average order value