Australians waste $10bn of food annually with “excitable” Generation Y consumers the worst offenders, according to a new report.
The found that households wasted up to $1,100 worth of food each year, or 14% of their weekly groceries, with one in four Gen Y consumers saying they threw out up to 20% of their weekly groceries.
The report also found a correlation between food wastage and a lack of understanding about agriculture and food production.
A Rabobank spokesman, Glenn Wealands, said people who rated Australian farming and food production as “not important” threw out 25% of their weekly groceries, while those who said it was “very important” threw out just 13%.
he survey of 2,3000 people aged 16 to 65 also found food wastage was higher in capital cities, particularly Sydney, than in regional areas. Sydney also had the highest average weekly household spend of $163 a week, compared with $159 for New South Wales as a whole, $154 for Queensland and the Australian Capital Territory, $149 in Victoria, $146 in Western Australia and $145 in South Australia and Tasmania.
Wealands said the report showed a correlation between disposable income and food waste that was most marked among Gen Y consumers, who he said were likely to have “high” financial health and greater discretionary spending because they did not have mortgage pressures.
“Gen Y have a higher degree of freedom and spontaneity than the more – I’m stereotyping here – than the more restrained Gen X and baby boomers who have to follow a structure through their week,” he said.
“So they’re more likely to plan with good intentions but then something more exciting comes up and that good intention that was going to be Wednesday night’s dinner gets pushed back to the back of the fridge.”
He said households could remove financial stress by planning their meals and sticking to the plan, just as their parents had told them to do when they moved out of home.
Ronni Kahn, the founder and chief executive of OzHarvest, an organisation that “rescues” surplus perishable food to feed vulnerable people, said actual levels of food waste were up to four times higher than the report showed.
“We will have a report coming out of NSW soon that shows the amount of food wasted per household is closer to $4,000,” she said.
A report by the Foodprint Melbourne Project in June found households in Melbourne wasted, on average, .
Kahn said there was a correlation between consumers being unaware of the mechanics of food production and consumers being willing to waste food.
“What’s happened is we have lost that connection between what it takes to grow and what it takes to consume, and we are complacent,” she said. “As consumers we are spoiled for choice and we expect to be able to walk into a supermarket at 11pm and have the same choice that we would have at 8am.”
Kahn said people were no longer taught how to budget and prepare meals by their parents, and suggested that the rise of cooking shows meant people were increasingly likely to plan and shop for elaborate meals that never eventuated.
“People need to be taught that a recipe is a guide – look in your fridge and your pantry before you go to the supermarket and if you can substitute an ingredient with something you already have then do that,” she said. “They would save quite easily $3,000 to $4,000 a year.”
