cross-posted from: https://wolfballs.com/post/29882
No need to click the link, just citing the source and article title should make my point:
"Almost half of the world's food thrown away, report finds"
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/jan/10/half-world-food-waste
sj_zero@lotide.fbxl.net 2 years ago
It could, but it's not so simple.
Nobody wants to waste food. Nobody wakes up in the morning and goes "You know what we need? To waste food!". There is no moustache twirling villain.
The problem is that food waste is complicated. Sometimes it happens because food times out on grocery store shelves. Sometimes it happens because food times out in restaurant ovens. Sometimes it happens because food times out during transportation.
A lot of this looks like stupid waste, but a lot of it is for food safety. The restaurant misjudges how many things it needs to make, and depending on what the foodstuff is, it's been sitting in a heater all day, or it's been sitting there under a heating lamp all day. It's probably fine, but probably won't help if the restaurant goes out of business.
Another big part of it is a total lack of supply chains of that sort. At the end of the shift the restaurant throws out a bunch of food. Great. Is someone going to send a truck out all over the city to pick it up, then take it somewhere, certify it as safe and prepare to quickly sell it to someone who wants it? That's a lot of work to sent out something that might not find anyone who wants it.
Seems inefficient, but we're in a system that's constantly hunting for efficiency, and this is as good as it gets. All other systems result in less food making it from the farm to the table.
squashkin@wolfballs.com 2 years ago
yeah basically this is the efficiency to add, some places are already working on it or things like it