After getting lost a few times using the tram my first couple days in Melbourne, I had the pleasure of accompanying Brad on his runs for OzHarvest, an organization that works to reduce food waste by redistributing food that would otherwise be thrown away to various charities across Melbourne. I wish I could provide you with a map of everywhere we went to pick up and drop of food, because we racked up quite a few miles between 8 and 4:30.
One of the most important parts of a food system that is often forgotten is the end of product's lifecycle. In this case, it might be food items taken to patients in a hospital but which aren't consumed and left unopened, too-ripe mangoes in the produce section of Coles or Woolworths (known as the two biggest grocers in Australia), day-old pastries from a bakery, or browning bananas from Aldi. Having read many times about food waste in America (check out this article from Food Tank for some good insight into how much we actually waste versus what we perceive to throw out on a regular basis), the fact that grocery stores and restaurants throw away lots of food was not a new concept. I understood that liability protection laws often prevent employees taking home food, for fear of someone getting sick and suing the grocery store, but I wasn't sure if Australia would have any different methods for dealing with the problem. As it turns out, nothing varied much from what I expected. Some of the methods for putting together the "bad" produce seemed a little unorthodox--throwing it all together into a grocery cart, without much in the way of containment. Sometimes single tomatoes would be mixed in with bags of lettuce and cartons of meat. Some meats were frozen and others weren't. Yet, the smiling faces of those at the charities served as a bright contrast to the jumbled assortment of produce we picked up.
Brad noted that the success of OzHarvest's work has a lot to do with the employee buy-in. The managers have to be willing to do the work and enforce food collection across the employee base. He noticed a big difference in collections based on how committed the employees were to going through everything and setting it aside. Some would just collect produce and others would go through the whole store to gather donations.
Data collection was an important part of this process. We weighed what we collected, and then put it into an app on Brad's phone. There were different categories, so that at the end of the year the donors would know how much they had donated (equating to x number of meals) and if it was "healthy" or not. At one of the pick-ups there was a box of melting ice cream bars...
A few notable moments:
At lunch we talked about the inherent issue in reducing food waste where it's nearly impossible, such as in the field of catering (startup opportunity, anyone?). There's only so much you can do to account for people's diets, how many guests they will or won't bring, if the guests will come at all, and how weather might affect the turnout. Brad at one point ended up with something like 20,000 extra donuts from a large event, with no ready solution for making use of them. How crazy is that?! And to think that caterers regularly deal with issues of extra food...seems like a great field to tackle food waste.
When you think about the overall sustainability of OzHarvest, there's a lot that could be done on the part of grocers and other food venues to both make money and reduce the carbon emissions. Sometimes Brad drove an hour away to pick up food and only came away with maybe a small box of food. If there weren't any nearby charities to donate to, such a pickup would not really be worth the energy. But what if grocery stores could set up a rack at the front (or back) of the store with all the things that we had been collecting and label it as "Free"? Wouldn't that be a more effective way to donate the food and ensure that it is used by someone who lives nearby? It would eliminate the need for OzHarvest to drive all over the city redistributing food, essentially putting them out of business, but it would also reduce the use of gas, provide local people with food who need it, and probably improve the business' reputation by being able to advertise their "good samaritan" qualities, if you will. I'd be interested in talking to a grocery store manager and see what their counter-arguments would be to that. Just some food for thought....(pun definitely intended)
Essentially, the main idea of this post is that there's this weird issue you deal with right before the holidays, when charities close, so you don't have anyone to bring food to, but everyone is trying to clean out their refrigerators because they're about to close for two weeks, so then they have to deal with having too much food, but no where to drop it off. This idea came up again and again during my first week in Melbourne: Volunteering for the Fitzroy Market through Community Grocer, they ended up giving away food because they had no where to store it; Casey bringing home lots of produce from work; having a holiday party and people not eating as much as you expect they will. And then, of course, when you leave for a trip, like I am about to, you try to ensure that right after the holidays you don't have too much in the fridge. Needless to say, a lot of our food ended up in the freezer today.
As I mentioned before, food waste is often the greatest during the holidays, for obvious reasons, but I encourage you to perhaps buy a stack of to-go containers for your guests or remind them to bring their own to your next big celebration. Share the love so that you don't end up with a fridge full of food you'll never get to.
One of the most important parts of a food system that is often forgotten is the end of product's lifecycle. In this case, it might be food items taken to patients in a hospital but which aren't consumed and left unopened, too-ripe mangoes in the produce section of Coles or Woolworths (known as the two biggest grocers in Australia), day-old pastries from a bakery, or browning bananas from Aldi. Having read many times about food waste in America (check out this article from Food Tank for some good insight into how much we actually waste versus what we perceive to throw out on a regular basis), the fact that grocery stores and restaurants throw away lots of food was not a new concept. I understood that liability protection laws often prevent employees taking home food, for fear of someone getting sick and suing the grocery store, but I wasn't sure if Australia would have any different methods for dealing with the problem. As it turns out, nothing varied much from what I expected. Some of the methods for putting together the "bad" produce seemed a little unorthodox--throwing it all together into a grocery cart, without much in the way of containment. Sometimes single tomatoes would be mixed in with bags of lettuce and cartons of meat. Some meats were frozen and others weren't. Yet, the smiling faces of those at the charities served as a bright contrast to the jumbled assortment of produce we picked up.
Brad noted that the success of OzHarvest's work has a lot to do with the employee buy-in. The managers have to be willing to do the work and enforce food collection across the employee base. He noticed a big difference in collections based on how committed the employees were to going through everything and setting it aside. Some would just collect produce and others would go through the whole store to gather donations.
Data collection was an important part of this process. We weighed what we collected, and then put it into an app on Brad's phone. There were different categories, so that at the end of the year the donors would know how much they had donated (equating to x number of meals) and if it was "healthy" or not. At one of the pick-ups there was a box of melting ice cream bars...
A few notable moments:
At lunch we talked about the inherent issue in reducing food waste where it's nearly impossible, such as in the field of catering (startup opportunity, anyone?). There's only so much you can do to account for people's diets, how many guests they will or won't bring, if the guests will come at all, and how weather might affect the turnout. Brad at one point ended up with something like 20,000 extra donuts from a large event, with no ready solution for making use of them. How crazy is that?! And to think that caterers regularly deal with issues of extra food...seems like a great field to tackle food waste.
When you think about the overall sustainability of OzHarvest, there's a lot that could be done on the part of grocers and other food venues to both make money and reduce the carbon emissions. Sometimes Brad drove an hour away to pick up food and only came away with maybe a small box of food. If there weren't any nearby charities to donate to, such a pickup would not really be worth the energy. But what if grocery stores could set up a rack at the front (or back) of the store with all the things that we had been collecting and label it as "Free"? Wouldn't that be a more effective way to donate the food and ensure that it is used by someone who lives nearby? It would eliminate the need for OzHarvest to drive all over the city redistributing food, essentially putting them out of business, but it would also reduce the use of gas, provide local people with food who need it, and probably improve the business' reputation by being able to advertise their "good samaritan" qualities, if you will. I'd be interested in talking to a grocery store manager and see what their counter-arguments would be to that. Just some food for thought....(pun definitely intended)
Essentially, the main idea of this post is that there's this weird issue you deal with right before the holidays, when charities close, so you don't have anyone to bring food to, but everyone is trying to clean out their refrigerators because they're about to close for two weeks, so then they have to deal with having too much food, but no where to drop it off. This idea came up again and again during my first week in Melbourne: Volunteering for the Fitzroy Market through Community Grocer, they ended up giving away food because they had no where to store it; Casey bringing home lots of produce from work; having a holiday party and people not eating as much as you expect they will. And then, of course, when you leave for a trip, like I am about to, you try to ensure that right after the holidays you don't have too much in the fridge. Needless to say, a lot of our food ended up in the freezer today.
As I mentioned before, food waste is often the greatest during the holidays, for obvious reasons, but I encourage you to perhaps buy a stack of to-go containers for your guests or remind them to bring their own to your next big celebration. Share the love so that you don't end up with a fridge full of food you'll never get to.
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