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Re: wasting food in the US



Sean and Sanet,

>
> I heard something recently about a new study by the USDA on food waste in
> the US.  Apparently the study included recent estimates of the amount of
> food discarded (not eaten, thrown away) by consumers.  Does anyone know
> anything about the study?


There is information about the report at 
http://www.econ.ag.gov/whatsnew/feature/

You can actually download the entire document in Adobe Acrobat.  Here's what 
you'll see at the above URL (sorry, I won't re-format it):

Estimating and Addressing America's Food
                                                     Losses


                                       Contacts: Linda Scott Kantor, 
Kathryn Lipton,
                                           Alden Manchester, or Victor 
Oliveira




                        Food Losses Occur Throughout the Food System

Some food losses occur at the farm and farm-to-retail level. . .

Farm and post-harvest 

     Preharvest losses due to severe weather, disease, and predation. 
     Harvest losses attributed to mechanization, production practices, 
and decisions. 
     Storage, insects, mold, deterioration, shrinkage, and spoilage. 

Processing and wholesaling 

     Removal of inedible portions--bones, blood, peels, pits, etc. 
     Discard of substandard products (bruised fruit, etc.). 
     Shrinkage in storage. 
     Poor handling or package failure. 
     Transportation losses. 

ERS estimates only losses by retailers, consumer, foodservice. . .

Retail 

     5.4 billion pounds of food were lost at the retail level in 1995. 
     Retail losses were less than 2 percent of edible food supplies. 
     Dairy products and fresh fruits and vegetables accounted for half of 
retail losses. 

Consumer and foodservice 

     91 billion pounds of food were lost by consumers and foodservice in 
1995. 
     Foodservice and consumer losses accounted for 26 percent of edible 
food supplies. 
     Fresh fruits and vegetables accounted for nearly 20 percent of 
consumer and foodservice losses. 

Note: Foodservice and consumer losses include storage, preparation, and 
plate waste at the household and food
service levels. 


This report is an advance release of an article to appear in FoodReview, 
Vol. 20, No. 1, Jan-Apr, 1997. FoodReview is
published by the Food and Consumer Economics Division, Economic Research 
Service, USDA. For more information, write
to: FoodReview, room 237, 1301 New York Ave., NW, Washington, DC 
20005-4788. To order, call toll-free from the U.S.
and Canada 1-800-999-6779. 

    This publication is in Adobe Acrobat PDF format. You can download and 
get help using the Adobe Acrobat Reader to
view and print this document. This format is used to preserve all of the 
content and layout used in our hardcopy publication. 

Contents

     Entire Report; 17Kb 

______________________

Andy Clark, Ph.D.
SAN Coordinator
c/o AFSIC, Room 304
National Agricultural Library
10301 Baltimore Ave.
Beltsville, MD  20705-2351
PH:  301-504-6425
FAX: 301-504-6409
san@nal.usda.gov
http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/san/


On Wed, 9 Jul 1997, Sean Clark wrote:

> Request for Information:
> 
> Saneters:
> 
> I heard something recently about a new study by the USDA on food waste in
> the US.  Apparently the study included recent estimates of the amount of
> food discarded (not eaten, thrown away) by consumers.  Does anyone know
> anything about the study?
> 
> If so, would you please send me the reference or information on how to
> obtain of copy.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Sean
> 
> M. Sean Clark
> Research Manager
> Sustainable Agriculture Farming Systems Project
> Department of Agronomy and Range Science
> University of California
> Davis, CA 95616
> (916) 752-2023
> msclark@ucdavis.edu
> 
> 


References: