Individual consumers

To begin with, NEA’s Reduce Food Waste Campaign advises consumers to heed these 3 pointers when eating out to avoid wasting food:

1. Order only what you can finish;

2. Ask for less rice/noodles if you can’t finish them; and

3. Say ‘No’ to side dishes you won’t eat

In addition to the guidelines provided by NEA, one can also bring a BPA-free reusable food container to store food items that they were unable to finish. Also, try to take fewer food condiments such as dipping sauces; take only what you need.

Prudent choice of eating out is also beneficiary to reducing food waste. Choose to avoid eating at high-waste dining establishments, such as buffet meals, or at restaurants that serve big portions or use a lot of garnishing in their dishes.

When shopping at the market for fresh produce, plan accordingly and be clear of what materials you need and what you don’t for your home cooking. Not planning and shopping according to one’s emotions can easily lead to impulse and over-buying. For those prone to trigger-happy grocery purchase, set a limit to how much your pantry can be stocked up (i.e. three-quarters full) as an aid in curbing over-purchase of food. After home cooking, store leftovers in the fridge under the right conditions to be consumed another day. Make a list of leftovers available, so that leftovers don’t get forgotten in the fridge and turn bad.

Food retailers (retailers of cooked food)

Many unconsumed food products in retail stores stem from leftovers prepared that the stall was unable to hawk out at the end of the day. Instead of dumping the produce, for products that can be kept overnight, it can be donated to homes and organizations taking care of the needy, otherwise allowing employees to pack them home. As for the products that cannot be kept overnight, the retailers should reduce the amount of that food item prepared according to the market sales rate of the food item.

For retailers that serve meals, they can spare giving condiments and staple sides such as soups and only serve them upon request of the consumer. If possible, do away with garnishing using consumable food items. For course meals, restaurants can also allow consumers to skip certain courses if they are unable to finish the full meal. Food stalls serving takeaways can also cease voluntarily giving condiments and instead make known to consumers to only request for it only if they need it.

There is a concern regarding donating food, however. In Singapore, most organizations are still reluctant to donate leftovers at the end of the day to homes and charities for the fear of liability, should any food poisoning result. On the other end of the spectrum, some organizations may also unscrupulously treat this avenue as a dumping ground for their excess food products, regardless of freshness. This issue of food donation is hence a tricky one that requires an inherent level of integrity to ensure that no organization abuses the rule.

Food producers and distributors (farmers, manufacturers, produce retailers)

Embrace ‘ugly food’ – misshapen grocery products that are aesthetically displeasing. Supermarkets can sell them at a lower price, which can also benefit shoppers in the form of a budget shopping option. This allows the producers to at least break even with the ‘ugly’ produce, better than throwing them away. On the distributor or farmer side, these ‘ugly’ food can also be sold to factories that produce secondary processed food products.

Distributors shall also invest in better food storage and transport for their produce to avoid the losses of food items along the way. This is a costly sunken cost but works in the long term as it reduces the losses incurred from the unsellable food that went bad due to mishandling in the process. To reduce the chances of food going bad on long-haul deliveries, producers can also limit the area to which they supply their food.

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Of course, the adopting of the above solutions each come with their own set of considerations, making them easier said than done. Other considerations such as profit-maximizing and efficiency will be obstacles to the food businesses as they are profit-oriented. Consumers might also prioritize taking advantage of the ‘free’ condiments and sides and making the most worth of their buck spent than putting in extra consideration to not waste food. Sometimes factors out of our control such as time lapses can also result in the unintentional wasting of food. Despite the challenges, minimizing food waste should still be the final goal. Anyhow, these changes have to come with larger efforts to persuade stakeholders to pick them up, such as public efforts and government regulations.