Food waste all over the news.

Is it just me, or has food waste become a hot topic on the news?

• The Institution of Mechanical Engineers just published a report on food waste, Global Food. Waste not, want not. The report seems to be getting a lot of attention and is being cited a lot (as far as I can tell!)
• BBC news picked up the story and published an article about it: UK supermarkets reject ‘wasted food’ report claims.
• My mom emailed me this short article in a public health blog that wrote about the report as well: The Under-Recognised Public Health Problem of Food Waste.
• As a side note, I googled “BBC news food waste” to find the BBC article above and found this article from January 2nd about food waste in Hong Kong, Banquet-loving Hong Kong grapples with mountain of food waste.

Maybe I have just begun to find more grey literature about food waste because I have been more vocal about my interest in food waste, so friends and acquaintances have begun sending me things they find about food waste.

Here is the TED talk that initially got me thinking about food waste, The Global Food Waste Scandal by Tristram Stuart. I first found it last October — I know this because I sent it to Ben on gchat so he could watch it too, so I have a record of the date.

(Hah, I managed to embed a video!)

What I find fascinating about food waste is not only that it is non-trivial to measure (because it is present across all parts of food systems) but also because it is a symptom of many problems in food systems. Anyhow, off to work.

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