The recent Global Table event held in Melbourne highlighted the evolving food waste debacle, which is reportedly more troublesome than the current recycling issue.
One of the attendees at the event, environmentally conscious company, FreshPaper says it’s on a mission to help reduce fresh food waste with their innovative product.
Said to be infused with organic spices that inhibit bacterial and fungal growth, and enzymes that cause over-ripening, one sheet of FreshPaper reportedly reduces fresh produces wastage by more than 50 per cent.
The food waste issue
FreshPaper’s takeaways from the event include:
- While Australia has committed to halving food waste by 2030, food waste awareness and education needs to be raised among Australians to change conscious behaviour – wasting food is said to be an unconscious behaviour currently with people who say they don’t waste food, wasting 90kg per year.
- Food waste is reportedly a bigger problem than packaging.
- The biggest food waste contributors are said to be households, followed by farm-gate.
Australian habits
Earlier this year, FreshPaper revealed the ‘2019 Secret Fresh Food Habits of Australians’ survey results, which showed:
- Only 50 per cent of the Australians surveyed eat fresh fruit and vegetables every day, with the top reasons for not eating fruit and vegetables daily being:
- They go bad too quickly.
- They’re too expensive.
- They don’t want to.
- 65 per cent of the Australians surveyed said some fresh fruit and vegetables go to waste weekly, with wastage highest among Millennials – older generations found to be least wasteful.
- Fruit and vegetables most likely to end up in the bin, include avocados, bananas, leafy greens, carrots and broccoli.