Discussion: Reducing food waste
The second part of the exam question asks you to discuss what could be done to reduce food waste and outline how the reduction of food waste can be seen as a business opportunity.
In the previous part of the study guide, we have given an extensive account of the causes and the impact of food waste both locally and globally. Now, we are going to begin with some of the possible measures connected to reducing food waste:
- Planning ahead
- Avoiding promotions and buying on discount
- Focusing on date labels
- Donating to charity
Focusing on date labels
Many times, people throw away food because they do not understand the difference between “best before” and “use by”. The term “best before” indicates that food is safe to eat for a period after that particular date, but that it will probably not be at its best regarding flavour.
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Donating to charity
Source 7, “Scale of UK food waste 'repugnant'”, presents a community activist who looks for food in bins and who feeds about 200 people every night with the good food he finds. He states that donating to charity and paying attention to what we throw out would probably feed much more people. The same issue is touched upon in Source 7, “Scale of UK food waste 'repugnant'”. From this source, we get to know how the Fare Share charity takes food which is seen as unsuitable for supermarkets and uses it to make a million meals each month for those in need.
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