Latest / Best of Business / Sheila Skeaff: University of Otago nutrition professor on the new report exposing food waste stats

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Sheila Skeaff: University of Otago nutrition professor on the new report exposing food waste stats · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talk sed be
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
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  Speaker 2: Now we've got new food waste stats out. It turns
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  Speaker 2: out consumers are not the biggest wasters. It's actually everyone
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  Speaker 2: else in the food chain, from the growers to the
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  Speaker 2: processes to the retailers. They waste two thirds of the
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  Speaker 2: stuff that we throw away, most of it is edible.
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  Speaker 2: It adds up to about two hundred and thirty seven
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  Speaker 2: CAGs per person per year. Sheila Schief is a professor
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  Speaker 2: at the University of Otago and wrote the report Highila, Hello,
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  Speaker 2: why are they throwing it away?
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  Speaker 3: I don't think it's just primary and process And we've
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  Speaker 3: also got a lot of food waste happening at and households.
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  Speaker 3: But I mean, if we think about things on farm,
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  Speaker 3: you know, we're part of the problem too. Is people
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  Speaker 3: don't want to buy wonky fruit or things that are,
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  Speaker 3: you know, not the right size. I'm just as guilty
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  Speaker 3: of that as anybody. So yeah, those some of the
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  Speaker 3: reasons why. And food safety is a huge problem too.
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  Speaker 3: Of course we have to look at food safety.
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  Speaker 2: Are you talking about in terms of the best buy
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  Speaker 2: date and the used by date where they.
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  Speaker 3: Don't I'm not gonna Yeah, that's one of it. But
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  Speaker 3: even even having things you know that maybe they're starting
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  Speaker 3: to not you know, they're not at the you know,
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  Speaker 3: at the best, even primary produce, it's not best. I'm
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  Speaker 3: not necessarily talking about packaged foods, but you know they
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  Speaker 3: maybe they're you know, starting to welter bed. And then
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  Speaker 3: it's a matter of decision of whether you know you're
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  Speaker 3: gonna you're gonna get that product and then use it,
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  Speaker 3: or whether you're gonna throw it away? She live.
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  Speaker 2: Isn't there a market here in a cost of living
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  Speaker 2: crisis for selling US an apple that's a little undersized
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  Speaker 2: in US paying twenty percent lest.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think it's a really good point.
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  Speaker 3: It is hard to break. It's very hard to change
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  Speaker 3: people's behaviors, I think, and even myself. You know, when
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  Speaker 3: you go to go and you're looking through, you're always
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  Speaker 3: kind of looking for I don't are we looking for
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  Speaker 3: the best food? I mean, I do try to buy
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  Speaker 3: the wonky bags of fruit and things like that, But
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  Speaker 3: it is a matter of kind of changing our mindset
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  Speaker 3: a little bit about what we were willing to purchase.
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  Speaker 2: Is it economically viable for them though, if they have
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  Speaker 2: if they've got a whole bunch of wonky apples, to
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  Speaker 2: to pay the labor costs of sorting it, then transporting it,
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  Speaker 2: and then selling it at a discount, doesn't actually make
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  Speaker 2: ends meet for them.
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  Speaker 3: I don't know the answer to that. You would have
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  Speaker 3: to contact the supermarkets, but you know, or worst, what
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  Speaker 3: are they doing? You know, they're doing the wonky avocados
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  Speaker 3: and the wonky this and the wonky that.
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  Speaker 2: So I mean, maybe I buy them? Do you buy them?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah? I do, definitely do buy them for sure, although
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  Speaker 3: I rather they weren't in a in a in a
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  Speaker 3: bag that was like a netted bag.
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  Speaker 2: But does she like, have you noticed they're not that wonky,
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  Speaker 2: Like that's still pretty good.
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  Speaker 3: They're totally not wonky.
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  Speaker 2: It's weird that they're even considered wonky.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I agree, But I think they're smaller like
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  Speaker 3: often those avocados they're in they're quite they're small, they're
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  Speaker 3: not the bigger ones. So yeah, but it's fine for me.
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  Speaker 3: What difference, So I don't care.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm with you on that. Okay. Now, now on
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  Speaker 2: the bright side, we are wasting a whole lot less
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  Speaker 2: than the rest of the world.
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  Speaker 1: Why is that?
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  Speaker 3: Oh, I wouldn't sit Well, okay, it's a tricky one.
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  Speaker 3: If you actually go and have a look at the report, okay,
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  Speaker 3: you'll see that actually in the UK and the EU
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  Speaker 3: per capita there they're half of us. But in fact
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  Speaker 3: I heard a talk last week and in Japan they're
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  Speaker 3: even lower. So it but it does depend what you measure.
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  Speaker 3: And unfortunately it's not all measuring an apple and apple.
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  Speaker 3: It's measuring different things. So there's a little bit of
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  Speaker 3: an issue with how we measure.
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  Speaker 2: So do you think we actually waste a lot more
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  Speaker 2: than we think?
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  Speaker 3: No? I think as as a country, okay, we produce
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  Speaker 3: a lot of food and we're pretty good at making
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  Speaker 3: sure that we make best use of that, particularly on
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  Speaker 3: farm and in processing, because I think, you know, we've
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  Speaker 3: got good cold you know, cold chain, we've got we
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  Speaker 3: bring people into pick, pick the food, et cetera. So
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  Speaker 3: we're pretty good. Household food waste is as high as
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  Speaker 3: it is in lots of places like Europe.
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  Speaker 2: All right, Sheila, thank you very much, really appreciate it.
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  Speaker 2: Sheila's give professor of nutrition at the University of Otaga
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  Speaker 2: and also the author of the report.
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