🌎
WTF. What if that means: Where’s the fruit?
Food waste is a major contributor to climate change. More than 40% of fruit and vegetables produced globally are lost or wasted per year. Up to two-fifths of all fruit and vegetable crops are wasted because they are 'ugly' (The Guardian, 2013). 💩
Across the world, we are currently wasting 1,555 million tons of food each and every year (BCG, 2018). However, the data becomes even more interesting when looking in detail at what food category is actually wasted the most, as a percentage share of the total amount of food wasted.
Ugly Numbers
Fruits and vegetables: 644 million tons thrown away (42%)
Cereals: 347 million tons thrown away (22%)
Roots and tubers: 275 million tons thrown away (18%)
Dairy: 143 million tons thrown away (9%),
Meat: 74 million tons thrown away (5%)
Oil seeds and pulses: 50 million tons thrown away (3%)
Fish and seafood: 22 million tons thrown away (1%)
Ugly numbers in EU
EU households waste over 17 billion kg of fresh fruit and vegetables a year - 35.3 kg of fresh fruit and vegetable waste per person per year, 14.2 kg of which is avoidable - On average, 29% of fresh fruit and vegetables purchased by households in the EU is wasted (De Laurentiis et al., 2018).
Each year an estimated 50 million tons of farmed fruit and vegetables are grown in Europe are discarded for being the wrong size or misshapen – that means a third of the crops harvested never reach the supermarket shelves (The University of Edinburgh, 2018).
Ugly Tomatoes
In Australia, almost 90% of edible tomatoes were wasted based on their appearance (The Guardian, 2017), while in the UK alone, 1.2 million whole tomatoes are thrown away each day (WRAP, 2018).
Ugly Bananas
A recent study in Sweden showed that bananas are the most wasted fruit in-store due to brown marks or minor bruises (Mattsson et al., 2018). In the UK, 1.4 million bananas are thrown away every day (The Guardian, 2017).
Ugly Apples
It is estimated that each year 3.7 trillion apples are thrown away globally (FAO, 2012).
Ugly Potatoes
Half of all fresh potatoes bought by UK householders each day are thrown away - 5.8 million of them per day, and at a “staggering” annual cost of £230m (The Guardian, 2017).
Ugly Carrots
60,214 tons of carrots are produced in Switzerland annually but about 30% of the production is lost during processing due to damages to the carrots (scratched or broken), inefficient sorting, and overly stringent quality standards (Kreft 2013). In total about 25-30% of carrots, don’t make it to the grocery store because of physical or aesthetic defects (FAO, 2019).
The anti-food waste app
If you live in the USA, you can try the Too Good To Go app. It lets you rescue delicious, unsold food from local shops and restaurants so it doesn't go to waste.
Always fresh, sometimes normal
If you are a lover of fruits and vegs, you should try Misfits. They deliver “ugly”, but otherwise perfectly edible fruits and vegetables right to your door – up to 40% off grocery store prices.
It's a subscription box of sometimes funny-looking veg & fruits, designed to break the cycle of food waste. By joining Misfits, you’re helping break the ugly cycle of food waste.
🍅🍆🥔🥒🍋🍏🍉... from fist-sized spuds to dimpled sweet potatoes, ghost-white cabbage, and mega-sized eggplants that rival the size of your head, the surprise of the mix and figuring out what to do with it is half the fun.
What the Heck?
What the heck do you do with these fruits and vegetables? Here you can find the right answer in a flash:
https://blog.misfitsmarket.com/2020/05/12/what-the-heck-do-i-do-with-this/
