Food Waste In Latin America

Food waste in American has grown by an unfathomable amount. After we eat dinner we casually scrape off the leftover scraps into the trash not thinking about the food we are wasting. We go to restaurants and order appetizers, entree, and desserts only to consume about half of each letting the remainder go to waste, but why do we waste it food? There are major factors that support this meme. A few reasons are that food is sold much cheaper in the United States than nearly anywhere else in the world, people desire the perfect produce, and inefficiencies in our food system/ farming process. Food waste in Latin America could feed 300 million people, Europe could feed 200 million, Africa could feed 300 million people… even if only ¼ of the food currently

“Grocery stores routinely trash produce for being the wrong shape or containing minor blemishes,” Doug Rauch, the former president of the Trader Joe’s Company explained (Chandler). Fruits and vegetable have a higher tendency of bruising, wilting, being discolored/brown, and that is something that American consumers today will not buy, keep, or consume. For an average family of 4 the typical waste of produce is almost 1,600 a year. Expired “sell by” dates are an area of major food loss as well. Products are discarded when “sell by dates” approach and consumers no longer want to purchase…but when in fact the sell by date are actually designed to help stores with stocking and ensuring that the freshest food gets placed out first for the consumers. “One industry estimated that supermarkets on an average discard $2,300 per store worth of “out-of-date” food everyday” (NRDC). Majority of this food that is thrown away is still consumable but with little shelf life left. In many states, it is not illegal to sell a product after the “sell by date”, but many stores don’t sell products after the “sell by date” due to their image, in order to increase their image/reputation many stores will pull products off the shelf 2 to 3 days early to ensure that no one accidently gets a product the day of or after the sell by date. Products are often thrown away when packaging becomes damaged or certain promotions for that product has passed, such as holiday specials. New food products are placed on the shelf, but often fail to sell and when the product fails to sell the store simply throws out the product in order to make room for a better selling one. Many stores believe that more is better, and customers prefer to choose from an overflowing bin rather than a scarcely filled bin. When in reality