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A study from the University of Edinburgh showed more than 50m tonnes of fruit and vegetables grown across Europe is discarded each year, largely because they did not meet supermarket and consumer standards of how they should look.
The climatic impact of growing the wasted food was said to be the same as the emissions of 400,000 cars. The study found that this waste was driven by the consumer expectation of how a product should look, meaning supermarkets set high standards when it came to what they wanted from farmers.
Encouraging people to be less picky about how their fruit and vegetables look could go a long way to cutting waste
As a result, they found farmers contracted to supermarkets typically grew more food than they were obliged to supply, to allow for a proportion deemed not fit to sell. The researchers suggested greater use of misshapen produce, for example in chopped, processed or picked goods, or for sale at a discount to charities, could reduce the wastage.
Stephen Porter from the school of geosciences in the University of Edinburgh said: “Encouraging people to be less picky about how their fruit and vegetables look could go a long way to cutting waste, reducing the impact of food production on the climate, and easing the food supply chain.”
Professor David Reay added: “The scale of food that is wasted when it is perfectly safe to eat is shocking at a time when one-10th of the world’s population is perpetually underfed.”
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