There's a lot of ways and views to look at this, and many various points to note.
So on the food waste side, I'd say, there's a lot of food waste.
And most of it is destroyed by incineration.
When we go to Pasir Panjang, we know that there's a lot of waste at the wholesale level.
This isn't even at the import level, there is another level above wholesale, and that's the importers.
SG Food Rescue has been called upon to help clear 8 pallets of sprouting onions.
Below is the size of 1 pallet of onions. Imagine having 8 pallets which would go to waste cos the importer can't sell sprouting onions.
(The picture is a picture found on the internet as an example, it's the size I want to demonstrate.)
Sprouting onions are the in-between of onions and spring onions. They can be eaten. But no one really buys them.
So SGFR goes and tries to distribute the onions to whoever is willing to take them. Doesn't necessarily mean the poor, cos food waste is food waste, helping the poor is a different thing.
And anyway, not all low income are willing to eat sprouting onions as well.
The importers could have bought too much, left it for too long, whatever...
At the wholesale level, at Pasir Panjang, the shop owners will also filter through the products.
Cos they need to send before ripe products to the retailers, like supermarkets and wet markets.
Note, BEFORE ripe. Cos retailers will display the products for 2-3 days.
Which means, if the produce is ripe, they might want to dispose it, cos the retailers might not want it. Cos it won't last.Then they'll remove produce that might be too big, too small, cos it doesn't look nice on display, remove those with different skin colours, even though the apple might taste the same, remove banged up veges, cos no one is going to buy them, etc...
At the retailers, supermarkets, wet market, little India retailers, whatever, once again, the produce is filtered, light damage from transport, banged, over ripe, unable to sell in time, new stocks coming in so dispose old stocks, etc...
Understandable, cos consumers want to buy perfect products.
There are also other business issues...
For example, a supplier has an over supply of cucumbers. He will force his retailers to accept the oversupply, even though it's cheaper, retailers will end up with a lot of cucumbers that they cannot sell. So they end up having to throw away.
BUT, they have to accept this.
Cos when the supplier has an under supply due to poor weather, the retailers want the suppliers to continue to supply them.
The idea of, you help me, I help you.
Cos if the retailer doesn't want to take excess stock, when there's over supply, then the supplier won't want to supply the retailer when there's limited stock. "You don't help me, why should I help you?" Might as well I help your competitor who helped me last time.
Leading supermarkets chains... I shall not name which... They proclaim they have minimal/zero food waste. What they do, is that for biscuits or canned food which cannot be sold in time, they return the stuff to the supplier. Like magic, the food waste disappears from their books. The problem is now the suppliers' problem.
Or during CNY, a major supermarket may order 2x the needed amount of bakchoy from 2 different vendors. And at the last minute cancel one order, cos this helps them as a contingency plan. So that the supermarket can confirm have the supply available. But this leads to one vendor having to hold on to a whole order of wasted bakchoy.
From a business perspective... it's like that... you buy 100 cans of sardines, you sell 90, it's good enough. Throw the rest. IF can sell 100 cans of sardines, then next time I'll restock 120 cans... I'll keep buying more cans until the point where I have to throw away.
Businesses want to keep stocked up, and we as consumers are used to being able to obtain anything we want, whenever we want. We have grown to expect that. Of course, all this comes at a cost to consumers, even though consumers don't see the cost.
Or at a buffet, a buffet is usually open for 4 hours... let's say 6pm-10pm...
At the end of the day, there's maybe 100kg of wasted food. So that seems a lot.
But maybe in total they produced 1000kg of food and consumers have eaten 900kg of food.
So yes, the 100kg seems a lot, but when looking at the total amount served.
As a business owner, it's acceptable.
If you look at it from the perspective of individual businesses, it's understandable.
But if you look at it from a big picture, end to end supply chain, it's ridiculous.
There's enough food waste to feed the less fortunate AND drive down the cost of food for everyone else.
Now, don't think of food waste as rubbish food. It's not. It's food that is disposed due to whatever reasons. Which might have nothing to do with the quality of the food.
Example... Go to Marks & Spencer after 25 Dec... What do you see?
Yes, there's sub-prime food, but there's also a lot of good food that is discarded due to whatever business reasons. Furthermore, it doesn't make business sense to give the food away, cos expense and logistics.
Distribution itself is an issue.
Then we have organizations like "Food Bank".
By right, they work with other organizations to accumulate the unsold products and try to distribute it to the needy. They have food boxes left all around shopping centers, void decks to help gather food.
In the end, what happens is, people will drop off their expired food or past best before date into these boxes.
Yes, such food is still edible, I've written about that before.
Don't take my word for it. Just Google search "Are expiry dates real?".
But Food Bank doesn't distribute such items.
Previously some freegans used to go to Food Bank to help take and consume the stuff they aren't able to give away.
In other cases, some people buy food to put into the boxes... which pretty much defeats the purpose of reducing food waste.
Retail chains also give food to Food Bank... Sometimes, they give them with a lot of time to spare, so the Food Bank is able to distribute the food. Sometimes, retailers give the food to Food Bank with only 1 month left to expiry, so Food Bank isn't able to push out the food in time. So ends up, more food waste.
Food distribution to the needy isn't as simple as just pass Food Bank the food and they immediately pass it out. It's a charity, they only have a handful of employees, they need or organize volunteers to distribute the food. So that takes time...
Also... there are OTHER organizations which request Food Bank to organize events to distribute food with their employees, so these organizations will BUY food to give to the needy and Food Bank will help organize the employees of these organizations...
Remember the example I gave you about sardines? So what happens is, the retailers will see a spike in demand for sardines, and next month, restock more, but most of these "help the needy" events are once off by the organization... so what happens to the excess? Sure you can slowly sell canned sardines, but what if it's eggs and milk?
The problem of food waste, isn't just about finishing the food on your plate.
It's a deeply entrenched issue within the system, the supply chain.
It's the effect of industrialization and automation. Producing large volumes of food has become easy.
And people have become rich. So they are more willing to pay more to have nicer products.
So a farmer may throw away 30% of his produce cos it doesn't look perfect and he's still able to turn a profit by selling the remaining 70% to the next level.
Supermarkets only show nice fresh veges cos consumers want that. It's a natural progression of humans.
And it's not easy to undo. Cos what if NTUC now supplies less stuff and imperfect produce? Imperfect looking, but still edible. What if NTUC has less cans of sardines, corn, tuna, so some days when you go, you can find, some days you go, it's out of stock?
What happens is consumers may end up going to Sheng Shiong instead, or complain.
Food security through the food supply chain goes hand in hand with food waste. The only hope is to reduce the food waste.
As a farmer, in my worst year, I must be able to produce enough to keep my business afloat. Which means in my average/best years, most years, I have excess.
Then we move on to feeding the poor/needy/low income...
CNA did a documentary about this below.
In one clip it shows some less fortunate people who have nothing to eat.
In the 2nd clip it shows some elderly folks who are over-served by organizations such that they have so much that they are able to waste it. They may not have cash but they sure aren't hungry.
It's a flaw in the system and probably due to "feel good" factor of doing social work.
The idea of, "I've already donated", and I pat myself on the back.
Or I've delivered food for the less fortunate, and I think I'm great cos of it.
I have friends who tell me that some of these low income estates are so over provided for, that they leave rice and oats at the void deck, in the hopes that someone else can pick it up and use it. Cos they say... "We receive so much rice, how much rice can we eat?"
SGFR has delivered food to a low income estate. It was quite regular. It's a truckload of fruits and vegetables. One of the volunteers who was organizing the distribution thanked us for the food and asked if we have any initiatives for meat products. Cos apparently they have difficulty obtaining meat products.
And this really blew my mind. Cos... WOW to me, it's some entitlement mindset.
There are vegetarians in SGFR, so to me, eating purely vegetables and fruits are considered an acceptable diet. Are they expecting donors to provide everything? In my mind, I was thinking... "If you have rice and vegetables and fruits... that should be good enough. If you have excess money and want to buy meat, then that's your choice. Cannot be expecting others to provide 100% of their dietary requests right."
And yet...
If you watch the clips, there as an instance where the elderly has 4 packets of food per day and he chooses which to eat.
Or products which are given to the low income and after a while, they start demanding for brand names. "Why oranges aren't Sunkist brand?"
Even giving to the "needy" results in food waste. Are they even needy anymore?
There is a serious lack of coordination on who and how and what to supply.
Charitable organizations are like any organization. Same ol' nonsense.
Politics, turf wars, money matters, etc.
I've heard of politics and turf wars between organizations. They want to serve the same area, no one wants to move out and serve somewhere new.
Within the organization, it's like any other company, people want to be promoted, get more pay, etc.
The volunteers are blissfully ignorant. They feel like they have done good deeds by providing help and delivering food to the needy. Well done! Pat themselves on the back!
I think food waste and feeding the poor are very different issues.
It's possible to combine them and get a lot of synergies.
But they need to handle a lot of their own issues which have nothing to do with each other.
Food waste is the result of an over supply and the demand of perfection.
There's so much produce that people can afford to be choosy.
People buy and stock up food and discard when it's not consumed.
Food that's packed for events, or celebrations, festivities.
Companies that refuse to give away the waste in the fear that it would impact business. Cos people might wait for the food to be discarded to obtain it for free.
Food is cheap, too cheap.
Lack of education about expiry dates, best before dates, and what they mean.
Lack of common sense.
Poverty is another issue.
Could be poor choices, lack of education on the choices available.
Mental issues.
Lack of knowledge about the help available.
Lack of health so they aren't able to work.
Organizational politics, turf wars, as an organization you want to serve the people where you can be seen. It's part of the game. If people can't see what you're doing, then you won't get more donations.
Also, organizations need to be efficient and would want to help people in a cluster. No point delivering to a place with only 10 low income households.
Why do I think it's important to solve them independently?
Cos food waste is food waste.
You can reduce food waste and NOT feed the poor.
Food waste is a systemic issue, pushing leftovers to the poor is just finding an outlet for the problem.
The problem is a function of overproduction AND consumers wanting food that looks nicer, and also the lack of education of expired food. Tons of food are discarded just cos people believe that it can't be consumed or that it is not safe to consume. And even if some people know it's safe to consume, they don't mind throwing it away cos it's cheap, might as well buy a new one anyway.
Feeding the poor is also a different issue.
You can feed with poor with better organization of the help available.
It's possible to help the poor without involving food waste.
For me, feeding the poor is just a once off stop gap...
In my mind... it's always been, ok so we've fed this person... what's next? What's being done so that this person will be able to get out of the cycle?
So yes, it's best if both problems could nett off each other, but they also can be settled by themselves.
Even if it's combined, without proper organization, the excess food redirected to the wrong parties would also end up wasted.
On the other hand, if there's good organization and a good network giving the excess food to the needy, if there is poor acceptance of imperfect food, that's also a problem. Cos some people would be fussy on the products received cos they don't look perfect.
Personally, I'm not into either food waste or feeding the needy.
For me, it's about fun and convenience and free food. If I get free food and it's fun and convenient to pass some off to the needy, I'll do it. Then I don't think about how the food is used, if it's wasted, whatever. Cos I'm just there for my own personal benefit.
These issues are just too big for my tiny brain so I rather not think too much about them.
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