Monday, June 16, 2008

Feast Yet Famine

Life is strange. In the midst of all this publicity about world food shortages, this item from the news roundup on Hospitality Magazine in Australia.

Something disturbing and ultimately shameful in this.

Our $6bn food waste bill

Australians are wasting $6bn worth of food a year—enough to feed the entire nation for three weeks. The staggering data from an OECD study into food waste in developed countries emerged as the United Nations and IMF meet in Rome to discuss a looming global food crisis. The Australian figure is an estimate of domestic waste from items bought and not used. It does not include food scraps or restaurant and catering waste. It includes unopened yoghurt and milk cartons, whole chickens and tonnes of plastic sealed meat trays, part of the $96bn Australians spend on food each year. Meanwhile, a separate study found an average household produced 5kg of food waste each week. Sunday Telegraph (Sydney), June 15.

More news items on hospitality here

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