Who is really responsible for food waste?

Wasting food has become normal.Every week we throw over 500g of food in the garbage, creating high food waste percentages.But it's not just our fault.

We waste a lot of food, it's true.But are we sure it's all our fault?Are we sure that it is all the consumer's responsibility?Let's start with the numbers:food waste is about a third of the food that is produced each year.

Millions of tons of fruits, vegetables, grains that are grown and then processed to become food, actually they turn into waste before they even end up in our stomach.The experts call it food waste and it is a phenomenon of impressive dimensions.In terms of climate changes, it is worth8 percent of total CO2 emissions globally.

Food waste, what's behind these two words

But who is really to blame for all this waste?The simplest answer is: us.But it's an answer misleading and counterproductive.Let's think about it, as soon as we mention the word waste, our mind immediately visualizes the garbage bag at home, the waste container which, once again, unwillingly houses the shriveled carrot left in a crevice of the fridge for many months, the salad from the day before that no one wants to eat anymore and that jar of yoghurt bought on offer at the supermarket which has expired who knows how long ago.Let's be honest, we are so used to this image by now It seems normal to us pour out all the responsibility on the consumer, on ourselves, guilty of not paying attention to purchases, of not planning shopping or, worse, of not caring.In fact, the last one Waste Watcher 2024 report says that in the homes of Italians 683.3 grams are thrown away every week of food per capita.Absolutely a lot, an enormity if we think that the year before, much less was wasted.

Reading these data it seems that the responsibility is all ours.But really all of it.Except that two other protagonists are missing from this story:the first, the sneaky one, who pushes us to consume more and more.The second, what is not seen, occurs before the consumer even notices it.

The protagonists of food waste

The induction to consumption

We live in a consumer society, we are encouraged to buy food of all kinds, we are surrounded by amazing offers, when we enter a supermarket we are induced to buy food that costs little, sometimes very little, and which often not only tastes like nothing but is of very poor quality.The induction to consumption is one of the basic elements of our life and it has a huge impact on waste.

The reality of the countryside

In the report We're at a loss, for example, the Terra association! He proved that the fruit that does not satisfy aesthetic standards of large-scale organized distribution, simply it doesn't make it to the shelves, remains to rot in the field, becomes waste (what in technical terms is defined as food loss, food loss).In Italy, according to Ispra, approximately 5.2 million tons of food are wasted, 31 percent at the time of consumption, half of which due to excess purchases which, however, is partly due to supermarket offers.23 percent are lost at the level of primary production, the remaining part is lost at the level ofprocessing and distribution industry.

If we want to identify responsibilities and seek structural solutions that put an end to waste, the simplest answer, it's the consumer's fault.It is, however, also the misleading one that fuels the sense of guilt of us poor mortals who are increasingly helpless in the face of an unsustainable food system.

We must therefore broaden your gaze and start thinking, for example, about losses upstream in the supply chain:European standards and the rigidity with which supermarkets apply them exclude millions of tons of fruit from the market just because aesthetically imperfect (but equally good).It would be enough to review this rule, a commitment from large-scale retail trade to marketing this type of product would be enough to drastically reduce the percentage of waste.

Targeting the consumer exclusively is the perfect way to do not solve a problem at the root like food waste which, on the contrary, needs structural responses.