Sustainable Business

SB September 2013

Sustainable Business magazine - essential reading for sustainability professionals

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Retail Food Waste 2/3 Focus on consumer food waste is "deflecting attention" from the supply chain says Tristram Stuart in, not only in terms of minimising wasteful practices around food waste, but demonstrating transparency? It's hard to know,when to a large degree the data is fudged - or lacking - according to a leading voice in this field, Tristram Stuart. Stuart heads up Feeding the 5,000 - a global campaign that works with governments, businesses and society to catalyse change in social attitudes and help engineer solutions to deal with the food waste crisis. An ardent environmentalist, he travels extensively around the world with key stakeholders visiting farms and suppliers to witness what is going on first hand. What he sees, he says, is often shocking. "I went to Kenya in February and saw farmers out there wasting 40% of the food they grow because it doesn't meet arbitrary or overly-strict cosmetic standards for the supermarkets they supply. They were cutting beans in half to fit into specified trays and suffering from the consequences of cancelled forecasts," he recalls. What is happening out in Kenya is likely being replicated across other global supply chains. Earlier this year a report from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers criticised major food retailers for not doing enough to address the issue - with up to half the world's food estimated to be going to waste each year (2 billion tonnes), it called for supermarkets to relax strict sell-by dates, sell more misshapen produce and ease up on bulk offers. However where the real problem lies

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