Beef, bread, cheese, and salad are the most thrown out foods in Australian kitchens, a comprehensive study by the Fight Food Waste Cooperative Research Centre (FFW CRC) has found. We also throw out around $965 worth of food per person per year.
In the largest Australian study of its kind, FFW CRC employed multiple sources and methods to determine the “how, why and where” of food waste.
Online surveys, electronic kitchen diaries, audits of kerb side bins and focus groups were all used to understand what is really happening on the consumer household front.
What the CRC found was a disconnect between how much people think they waste and how much they actually waste – and we waste a lot. The average household throws away 219kg of food a year, or an average of $965 per person per year.
FFW CRC CEO Dr Steven Lapidge said looking into people’s bins as well as their minds revealed that not knowing what to do with leftovers was a major problem in Australia, with young people and families with children likely to waste the most.
“The study shows there’s a lot of misunderstanding about food waste and a lack of knowledge about what to do. That’s good news for those of us working to reduce waste because by sharing what we know about reducing food waste we can help everyone do something about it.”
Reducing household food waste is paramount to FFW CRC’s ambition of securing Australia’s food future. In Australia, 2.5 million tons of food is thrown away from homes every year.
In 2017, the federal government released the National Food Waste Strategy which set the national target to halve food waste by 2030.
Lapidge said, “A pleasing 93 per cent of people over 75 regularly use up the oldest ingredient first and translating that knowledge to young people would have a big impact on what they throw away.”
This study is part of the CRC’s ‘Designing effective interventions to reduce household food waste’ research project. It is managed by the FFWCRC, with support from state and territory governments, industry and food rescue charities.
What it has done is provide empirical evidence on behaviours leading to food waste in households throughout Australia and identified distinct audience groups based on their food waste attitudes, beliefs and practices.
It has also highlighted that large scale household behaviour change by consumers is needed.
“The research provides a detailed analysis of why people waste food, the challenges and barriers for them to reduce it as well as the foods and behaviours that can be prioritised to meet the Australian Government’s goal to halve food waste by 2030,” Lapidge said.
Guidelines will be developed for practitioners developing and running campaigns to reduce food waste. These guidelines will be based on behavioural insights and behaviour change theory to prioritise household food waste interventions for each of the identified audience groups around criteria such as potential impact, likely uptake, and ease of adoption.
Evaluation guidelines will also be developed to assist in providing a common approach for evaluating the effect of interventions
Priority areas for consumer action to reduce food waste:
- check what is already in the fridge, freezer and pantry before shopping and take a ‘shelfie’;
- so you can check what you have back home whilst out shopping;
- only buy what is on the shopping list;
- move the oldest food items to the front of the fridge so they can be used first – and then use them first; and
- read the storage instructions provided on the packages – and then store food properly.
The research summary and five supporting data reports were published today and can be downloaded here.
Listen to Dr Steven Lapidge and FFW CRC project leader and RMIT academic Dr Simon Lockrey talk to Food & Drink Business editor Kim Berry about the CRC’s work on the podcast, here.
