Food Waste Comes Back To Your Plate!?
Mr. Koichi wanted to help food loss in Tokyo, Japan
Some people call Tokyo the world's greatest food city. Convenience stores become tourist spots because the food is so tasty. But at the same time, businesses are facing a food waste problem.
It turns out about 8 million tons of edible food is discarded by department stores and convenience store chains in Tokyo every year. That is a lot of waste. I hope they can solve the problem using apps like “too good to go”, the online platform to connect companies with unsold food surplus and sell to consumers for reasonable prices. (Click here to read the article) But the current amount of food waste may be too large for them to solve alone.
Why? Because people prefer seeing the food shelves full of fresh food. People don’t want to buy the last item remaining on the shelf. So they tend to choose stores with shelves full of various products. This occurs not only in Tokyo but all over the world.
Koichi Takahashi, CEO of Japan Food Ecology Center, INC wanted to reduce food waste and help the environment. Starting in Kanagawa Prefecture, he made a company which can turn unsold food into healthy pig feed. They receive up to 32 tons of food waste a day which is perfectly edible but just beyond the “best by" date. "Best by" doesn’t mean it goes bad after that date. It's just past the best time to eat.
Takahashi's company mixes the food to provide nutritional balance, then shreds it in order to turn it to liquid state. Then the feed is sterilized by heat and fermented. The pig feed is super healthy and safe. Since they are working with food which is not rotten, the facility has a completely clean smell.
The feed is used for pigs which will become a premium brand of pork sold at supermarkets.
This cycle system is ideal. But we cannot rely on companies like this to solve the food waste problem all by themselves. Food waste is getting worse at the same time so many people lack access to food. In fact, 1/9th of the global population struggles with hunger.
How can we fix this contradiction? We can't just blame supermarkets and stores. We are all responsible for this problem.
According to the FDA, food waste in the US is estimated at between 30–40% of the food supply. It turns out the US discards more food than any other country in the world. Globally, wasted food accounts for about 8% of all greenhouse gas emissions. California made a new law that requires food waste to be composted. South Korea, France, Norway, Germany… A lot of countries are trying to fix this issue, too. We individuals can come up with ideas as well. Make compost at home? Freeze extra food for later? Use small plates to reduce food leftovers? Donate what you don't use to a local food bank? There are so many things we can do. Let’s think and take action.