According to Food Waste and Reduction Alliance, 44.3 billion pounds of food waste was churned out by manufacturers in 2016. There are 2 reasons to explain for such contributions
- Inadequate facilities
Food disposed at manufacturing level is often as a result of inadequate storage or processing facilities. This plagues developing countries more often as they are caught in between the conflict of seasonality of production and the cost of investing in processing facilities that might not be used all year round. Furthermore, manufactures have a large volumes of food and ingredients and a relatively small amount of manufacturing locations. This further suggests that with inadequate facilities, manufactures are more prone to dispose off food that are not able to meet food bank requirements. Besides inadequate facilities, the lack of recycling options results in manufacturing industries to just dispose off unwanted food.
- Cheaper Alternative to just dispose it off
Manufactures have a high volume of semifinished products such as ingredients or sauces, and unavoidable waste, such as trimmings and peels. According to Foodlexicon.org “trimming” refers to removal of unwanted parts of meat, fish and vegetables. Although most of these trimmings can be used to make soup stocks and sauces, it is more often thrown away. Food trimming occurs as manufactures aims to satisfy the “good looking” aspects of food that will prompt consumers to buy – cosmetic filtering! In addition, the discarding of “lower quality” food due to its appearance contributes to food waste disposal. It is much easier to throw food away then engage in secondary efforts of handling spoiled or excess produce.