What can we do about the enormous amount of wasted food?

[GrumpyBunny]

nm

[DSeid]

Of course anyone can always sue over anything no matter how frivolous the basis … reality is however Feeding America alone receives and distribute 4 billion pounds a year and it has apparently not yet occurred.

I am not a lawyer but this is what the lawyers have to say:

“Persons” in the law means (just as for political speech)

individuals, corporations,
partnerships, organizations, associations, governmental
entities, retail grocers, wholesalers, hotels, motels,
manufacturers, restaurants, caterers, farmers, non-profit
good distributor, or hospitals.11 Donors also include
“gleaners.” A “gleaner” is defined as “a person who harvests
for free distribution to the needy, or for donations to
a non-profit organization for ultimate distribution to
the needy, an agricultural crop that has been donated by
the owner.”12 The Federal Food Donation Act of 2008
extended the definition of donor to include both executive
agencies and contractors hired by those agencies. 13

No the burden of proof is not on the store to prove good faith, it is on the person bringing the frivolous suit to prove

a voluntary or conscious act or failure to act by a person who knew,
at the time of his or her conduct, that the conduct
was likely to cause harm to another.20 …
… Absent gross negligence, intentional misconduct, or
a violation of food or product regulations, the Good
Samaritan Act prevents the donation’s recipient from
bringing a lawsuit against the donor or donee for
food-or product-related injuries.

[dracoi]

I think the solution is to eat more pink slime.

[kanicbird]

The only answer to the OP is find a way to convert it to fuel. Seems a lot better then convenrting wanted and needed food to fuel.

[No_umlaut_for_U]

Yes, converting waste to ethanol is a much better idea than landfills, but that won’t help with bad meat and most other protein. Rendering can fix only so much.

The post harvest waste figures are what I see most often. In a graduate course I took a few years back, I learned about a third of grain was wasted due to infestation with insects or rats. Still, the remainder could be fermented into alcohol. A lot of milk is essentially wasted because of antibiotic residues, but can be fed to hogs, et. al. Milk which outdates in stores used to be converted to casein glues and paints, but much volume was still lost. (I don’t know if any is converted into caseinate food ingredients: I hope not.)

Distribution issues are the worst on a global basis. Since we see things like household waste, spoiled grocery produce, and restaurant discards, those only seem worse.

[DSeid]

For anyone interested a very neat paper(pdf).

Regionally, about 56 percent of total food loss and waste
occurs in the developed world―North America, Oceania,
Europe, and the industrialized Asian nations of China,
Japan, and South Korea―whereas the developing world
accounts for 44 percent of the loss (Figure 3). On a per
capita basis, however, North America and Oceania18 stand
out from other regions (Figure 4), with about 1,500 kcal
per person per day lost or wasted from farm to fork.
In terms of stages of the food value chain, 24 percent of
global food loss and waste occurs at production, another
24 percent during handling and storage, and 35 percent at
consumption. These three stages taken together account
for more than 80 percent of global food loss and waste.

The distribution of this food loss and waste varies significantly
between developed and developing regions with
developed countries seeing more at consumption and
developing countries seeing more during production and
handling and storage (Figure 5). …

… food waste at the consumption stage costs an average of US$1,600
per year for a family of four in the United States …

Lots of detail including

a subset of approaches [to reducing food waste] that literature
reviews, expert interviews, and co-author insights
suggest are particularly practical and cost-effective, could
be implemented relatively quickly, and could achieve
near-term gains once put into place.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

That paper also says that global food waste in weight is 32%. When converted into calories (much of the waste is water loss) then food loss and waste is 24%.

Think of that. We’re down 40% from the OP and all we had to do was read a pdf!