Wasted meals. Misplaced revenue.
Wasted meals. Misplaced revenue. Simply earlier than the Thanksgiving vacation, I spoke with Minnie Ringland, Local weather and Info Supervisor at ReFED, a US-based nonprofit working to catalyze the meals system towards evidence-based actions to cease the meals waste.
Concerning the information, the US generated 91.2 million tons of meals surpluses in 2023, which represented 38% of whole manufacturing. ReFED defines “surplus meals” as all meals that’s not bought or utilized in a enterprise or that’s not consumed at residence…
“When meals isn’t consumed, the assets used to supply it are additionally wasted.”
Whereas chatting with Minnie, I noticed that she is admittedly good at getting an image…
“When you think about all of our nation's meals surplus being grown in a single place, this mega farm would cowl an space the scale of California and New York mixed and that represents 16% of the full cropland within the US. and would eat as a lot water as California, New York and Texas mixed. And this wasteful farm primarily harvests sufficient meals to fill a 40-ton tractor trailer each 15 seconds.”
Merely put, it says it's a reckless use of our meals provide chain and has big impacts on our local weather and pure assets, meals insecurity, and the financial system. To be taught extra about their work to finish loss and waste throughout the meals system, go to ReFED.org.