Wasted Food Is Wasted Money, It’s Like Ripping Up $50 Notes

Wasted Food Is Wasted Money, It’s Like Ripping Up $50 Notes

I was talking with an Economic lecturer from Macquarie University. We were discussing how much money, wastage is costing Australian businesses.

Wastage is chewing up profits.

What pricked my ears was when he asked: "Do you know % of wastage from thief, overstock and products reaching the use by date, for Woolworths compared with Aldi?" So for Woolworths, its cost 18% for wastage & Aldi has managed to get the waste down to a rate of 4%. When we're talking businesses of this scale, you’re talking a lot of money. One of the reasons for big difference for Woolworths is their policy of always having products on their shelves. So they have people throughout the day going & filling the shelves & making them look they are full, which they call Facing. Which means they need to carry a lot more stock to achieve this goal.

Bakers Losing Money On Their Wastage

If I walk over to my local shopping centre at around 6:00 pm you see the Bakery bagging all the Rolls, Buns & Loaves of Bread they don't manage to sell. Then Foodbank picks all the baked goods and distributing to homeless & less fortunes people in our community. So they have managed turn all their unsold baked product in a way of helping people in need. So this reduces the pain of waste because you're giving a helping hand. But the reality is this is costing the Bakery lots of dough. (sorry for that pun I couldn't resist) So every day their baking bread & at the end of the day their handling approx 3 bags of leftover bread to the Foodbank. Think of the cost they have to buy all this extra Flour, Yeast and whatever else they are adding to their bread. They have to knead the dough... The dough needs to prove... Then it has to put on the trays... Loaded in the ovens & cooked... Once the bread cooked it needs cooling then removed from the trays & placed on the shelf... It gets worst The bakery has to pay the baker to make all the extra bread... There using more electricity, so that's costing more money... So every extra bag of bread they giveaway to Foodbank is costing the baker money. Such waste eats up your profits. That's just one local bakery imagine how bad this is when you take in account this happening across every bakery in Australia. Wasted food is wasted money it’s like ripping up $50 Notes

RMIT University Study on food waste in the hospitality sector

RMIT University's conducted an innovative Watch My Waste business research exploring food waste in the hospitality sector. This is what their research found. //watchmywaste.com.au/business-research/ Restaurants and cafes throw away nearly a quarter (23%) of the food they buy for their business... The amount of greenhouse gas emissions created by food waste going to landfill is 5.25 million metric tonnes of CO2-e every year in Australia – the same amount as that produced by the iron and steel manufacturing industries combined... On average 24% of food purchases… at least 40% food purchases end up in the bin... 317 grams food waste per cover gets thrown away, so that’s more than an average steak... Australians are wasting $10 billion in food every year, according to a new Rabobank report... These figures should be sickening to any restaurant owner.

Do you know How much food your Restaurant wastes every day?

Food waste in businesses is usually created by spoilage of food, during the preparation of food, and as customer plate waste. Many foodservice businesses do not know how much food they throw away each week, and thus how much money they are wasting. “Talk to any restaurant owner, and you will likely find that food waste is one of the top concerns when it comes to revenue loss. A 2013 study conducted by Business for Social Responsibility (BSR), on behalf of the Food Waste Reduction Alliance, indicated that more than 84 percent of the food waste generated by surveyed U.S. restaurants ended up in the landfill. Only 1.4 percent was donated, while 14.3 percent was recycled, and most of that was reclaimed as cooking oil...” “Most of the conventional restaurants and quick-stop eateries organization surveyed said transportation constraints, limits in storage capacity and insufficient on-site refrigeration were the greatest impediments to donating extra food to charities...” **It’s Time to Rethink Restaurant Food Waste ** Food waste is the deliberate wastage of food fit for human consumption, generated at the latest stage in the supply chain.

Wasted Food In Australia

Do Something About Food Waste infographic by lunchalot Foodbank alone collected and redistributed 10 000 tonnes of edible food in 2009–10.

National Food Waste Assessment

In 2013 it was estimated that food waste cost Australian households more than $8 billion each year. A departmental report released in 2011 estimated that Australians continued to generate 361 kilograms of food waste annually per person. The environmental cost is also significant and includes greenhouse gas emissions. An estimated 6.8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide was released as a result of sending organic waste to landfill in 2011.

The Hidden Cost of Waste

(Image sourced from Toolbox Talks fact sheet "Waste Wise Catering" produced by Sustainability Victoria. This publication attributes the diagram to Resource NSW, courtesy of the Department of Environment and Conservation) **National Food Waste Assessment **

The hidden impact of Waste

Wasted food means all the resources and inputs used in the production of all the food are also lost. Let's look at this example, it takes about 1,000 litres of water to produce 1 litre of milk and about 16,000 litres goes into a cow’s food to make a hamburger. The resulting greenhouse gas emissions from the cows themselves, and throughout the food supply chain, all end up in vain when we waste food. So you can see why Wasted food is wasted money it’s like ripping up $50 Notes. We looked how wastage is costing the restaurant industry billions of dollars. In the next article, we look at solutions to help reduce this waste, so you get to keep this money. Waste is bad for your Bottomline which means you have to work harder & longer to make a profit

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