Sustainability First: Facing Food Waste

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NASSAU, BAHAMAS – Billions of pounds of food are wasted worldwide annually, and a lot of it starts right at the food store.

An estimated 80 billion pounds of food is wasted annually in the United States, with almost half of that happening once it gets to consumers’ homes.

But it’s not just hungry-shopping at the supermarket causing the issue, around 10 billion of those pounds comes from what’s known as “surplus groceries” in stores. 

Surplus groceries are items at or nearing the end of their shelf life, damaged goods, or even fresh produce that simply doesn’t look as good. 

While that may not be the law in The Bahamas, the fact that most groceries are imported is likely an incentive for grocers to be wary of over-ordering.

But some countries take the waste more seriously than others. 

In 2016, the French Senate unanimously passed a law banning large grocery stores from disposing of or even intentionally spoiling unsold food that could have been donated to charities.

Here in The Bahamas, as consumers one of the biggest things we can do is embrace imperfect produce, giving farmers and grocers less motivation to discard perfectly good produce before it ever hits shelves.

And there are bigger initiatives we could try here, like partnerships with between grocery stores, restaurants, and the Bahamian organizations already working to get food on the table for the nation’s hungry.