Maud Descamps 10:57 a.m., June 15, 2022
The United Nations warns against food waste.
The UN reports that 14% of fruits, vegetables, cereals are lost between harvest and distribution.
If we believe that it is the distributor who wastes the most food, it is actually among the producers that the proportion is the highest.
This is a fact unknown to the general public: 14% of fruits, vegetables and cereals are lost between harvest and distribution, reveals the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
Alarming figures that are pushing more and more people to mobilize to prevent this food waste.
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The reality is that food loss occurs at all stages of production.
We often think, wrongly, that it is at the distributor that we observe the most waste.
In fact, it only represents 16% of the losses.
It is upstream that we see the most waste among producers, with 54% of the waste.
"Everyone overproduces 5 to 10% more"
But beware, this is not a deliberate choice.
"Products are discarded for two main reasons," says Vincent Justin, co-founder of the NOUS anti-waste store network.
"There are specifications and a cucumber must not be too twisted, a cherry must not be too small. The second big reason is that distributors require producers to guarantee their volumes. And so , to protect themselves from a rupture which would be very expensive, everyone overproduces 5 to 10% more. These products end up being out of date. And once they are out of date, they are thrown away.
The challenge is therefore to enhance these products to avoid throwing them away.
Improve storage, transport, but also set up channels with producers to recover products and find outlets, as is beginning to be done in certain brands specializing in the fight against food waste.