Everyone wastes food and about half of this waste happens in our homes! In Canada, anaverage family of four throws out about $1500 of food per year or 471 grams per day. To help you to waste less food, we started the North Shore Foodprint Challenge.
As part of the Challenge, community members were invited to weigh and report their preventable food waste – any food that could have been eaten but was thrown out – for five days in April.
Over the course of the Challenge, a total of 64 kg of food was wasted with a daily household average of 302 g. This is equivalent to throwing out three or four perfectly good apples every day. To see more results from the Challenge, visit our infographic.
Stay tuned for information on upcoming Foodprint challenges.
Food Waste Facts
* $31 billion worth of food is wasted in Canada annually.
* 47% of food waste occurs at home, which is the equivalent of $14.6 billion a year.
* 1.4 trillion litres of water are used per year on food that is waste
Reducing food waste not only saves money, but also helps to reduce the waste of resources needed to grow, package, and transport food, such as fuel and water. This all helps to save the environment.
Love Food Hate Waste Metro Vancouver is loaded with information on how to reduce your household food waste.
Save more and waste less food!
Here are some strategies that can help you reduce the amount of food you throw out.
Plan your meals
Make a shopping list
Serve the right portion size
Use up leftovers
Store food properly
Best before dates
References and Resources
The following resources were used to create the North Shore Foodprint Challenge and will provide additional information on food waste.
www.farmfolkcityfolk.ca/projects/foodprint
http://vcm-international.com/food-waste/food-waste-publications/
http://provisioncoalition.com/Assets/website/PDFs/Provision-Addressing-Food-Waste-In-Canada-EN.pdf
http://westcoastclimateforum.com/forumresources
For more information contact: info@tablematters.ca
The Foodprint Challenge is brought to you by the Table Matters Network.
The Table Matters Network would like to thank Fresh Street Market, Safeway, Save On Foods, Whole Foods, Canadian Tire and Farm Folk City Folk for their support.