What a Waste

Chances are, a decent percentage of families won't eat everything in their shopping cart, and that food will end up in an landfill along with nearly 35 million tons of perfectly edible food Americans throw away every year.

But one country is looking to change that -- France just made it illegal for grocery stores to throw away edible food.

According to French newspaper Le Monde, officials just passed a bill in the National Assembly requiring food retailers donate edible, unused food to charity or to facilities where it can be broken down and reused as compost or animal feed.

French politician Arash Derambarsh sponsored the bill after he was horrified to see bleach being deliberately poured into supermarket garbages along with edible foods to stop people from rummaging through the trash.

The move by France is being applauded by food and environmental organizations worldwide, and the French politicians are hoping other countries hop on board.

Given that Americans toss out 20-percent more food than we did just 15 years ago, maybe it's time to throw our hat in the ring, and no more food in the trash.

Every year, the United States throws away one-third of all the food it produces — 133 billion pounds of food. And grocery stores are responsible for tossing 10% of that food. But why does this happen? On the surface, it seems absurd to waste food when there are so many people who go hungry every day. Here are some reasons food is thrown away:

1. Overstocked product displays:
Most grocery stores operate under the assumption that customers are more likely to buy produce if it's from a fully stocked display. This assumption leads to overstocking, as well as damage to items on the bottom of those perfectly constructed produce pyramids.

2. Expectation of cosmetic perfection:
Customers have been trained to expect perfect, identically shaped produce. Retailers stock their produce according to that expectation — even if the shape, size, and color have nothing to do with quality.

This preference leads farms to avoid selling the so-called “B” stock to supermarkets. Whatever does make it through the cracks to store floor is taken out of stock.

3. Sell-by dates:
Most consumers have no idea what expiration dates, sell-by dates, use-by dates, or best-by dates mean. Consumers (and many sellers) wrongly assume that food is no longer good after these days. Instead, sell-by dates are guidelines for sellers to indicate peak freshness. Most foods are good long after the sell-by date.

Fearing consumers will either not buy the food or think the stores are carrying old products, most grocery stores pull the items out of stock several days before the sell-by date.

4. Damaged goods, outdated promotional items, and unpopular items:
Often, product packaging gets damaged during shipping, leading supermarkets to toss products even though the food hasn't been compromised. The stores assume, perhaps rightly, that no consumer is going to buy a dented box of cornflakes if a pristine one is right next to it. In addition, items that fail to sell like overstocked holiday foods or unpopular new items are often tossed.

As you may have noticed, not all of these explanations are the grocery stores’ fault. A lot of the problem lies with consumers, whose picky tastes dictate what grocery stores sell. These issues have parallels in consumers' homes. In general, consumers buy too much food, throw it away too quickly, and pay little attention to waste. Food waste on the consumer level is double that of the retail level (90 billion pounds of food versus 42 billion pounds).

A lack of education of both consumers and sellers on food safety and food waste has led to bad habits and wasteful selling practices. A huge percentage of food waste could be mitigated if more Americans were willing to buy bananas with brown spots, or if they understood they can eat yogurt two weeks after its sell-by date.

Wow... Way to go, France.