Rapid rise in food prices may help motivate consumers to reduce food waste, experts say

There's a song sung in the Vancouver home of Tara Moreau when she, her two daughters or her partner discard food rather than eat it.

Its refrain? "One-third of food is waste."

Moreau, a director with UBC's Botanical Garden, says while it's silly, it's a reminder of how serious wasting food actually is.

"It means that we can see it when we do waste food and acknowledge it," she said.

The Moreau family's song alludes to stark data that shows about a third of all food produced globally is lost or tossed annually. The waste has several consequences, including greenhouse gas emissions, as the food decomposes in landfills. As much as 10 per cent of global greenhouse emissions come from food waste.

In Metro Vancouver, where Moreau and her family live, organics make up 25 to 30 per cent of the garbage sent to landfills, depending on whether you live in a single or multi-family home.

Researchers, industry and politicians have been working to keep food out of landfills to help combat climate change and save money and resources. And now, inflation may be providing even more motivation to not waste food.

Canada's National Zero Waste Council says the average Canadian household throws out around 140 kilograms of food per year — with about 30 per cent of that being vegetables — worth more than $1,300.

"Some research says 50 per cent of Canadians don't realize how much money they can save by being more resourceful," said Richard Swannell, who has been working on food waste since 2005 and is an international director of the UK-based organization WRAP.

In 2007, WRAP helped launch the "Love Food, Hate Waste" campaign, which has been adopted by dozens of countries around the world, including Canada.

Many jurisdictions across the world want to reduce by half the amount of food sent to landfills by 2025 or 2030.

Swannell was one of several experts who spoke about food waste at Metro Vancouver's Zero Waste Conference this week. They argued encouraging consumers to change behaviours will not only help the environment but, now more than ever, their budgets as well.

Inflation is pushing up grocery bills at a rate not seen since 1981. The cost of edible fats and oils is up by almost 28 per cent in the past year. 

"That can give motivation to people to say, 'Hey, we can save a lot of money here and make our money go further, and we can do our bit for the environment and reduce our impact,'" he said.

Swannell and Hellman's Kristen Denega presented research in Vancouver that WRAP and the mayonnaise company did to show that, despite caring about food waste, many people are still throwing away the same amount of food as they did a year ago, or even more.

The goal was to highlight the problem and offer simple solutions for consumers to adopt to make meaningful changes.

"Food waste negatively impacts the planet, people and also your wallet," said Denega. "Oftentimes, mayonnaise is used in leftovers, and we also want to do something to help consumers help provide people with solutions that can actually make a difference."

The joint project recommends picking one weekday to cook with left-behind ingredients or leftovers and use a three-plus-one recipe technique where consumers choose a carbohydrate base, a commonly-wasted vegetable or fruit, a source of protein and then what they call a "magic touch" of herbs, spices or sauce to bring the dish together.

'People are inherently self-interested'

Toronto's BEworks, a behavioural science firm, found through surveys with consumers asked to track food waste as part of the WRAP and Hellman's project that many were surprised by how much food they were wasting.

"One of the challenges of food waste is making the invisible problem visible to people. That's a sustainability problem in general," said Angela Cooper, a strategist with BEworks.

She said with food prices rising, tackling food waste may resonate with more consumers but warns the solutions must be simple for people to adopt them in their daily life.

"Tools that are personally relevant for them without taking a strong stance that this is going to help with climate change, this is going to save the environment, which some people might care about," she said. "People are inherently self-interested in many ways."

Another tool consumers can use to reduce food waste is to take a "shelfie" before they go grocery shopping. It's a photo of the interior of a refrigerator or cupboard so consumers can avoid buying double what they may already have.

The research done by WRAP and Hellman's claims that adopting these small changes could reduce household food waste by as much as 30 per cent.

Sept. 29 was the International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste.