Wednesday, 11 May 2011

Spaniards waste €11 million per year on food

SPAIN (Agencies) Despite the crisis and the opinion of themselves as savers, a Europe-wide survey has discovered that Spaniards are nothing of the sort. The poll by Save Food says that about 20% of food bought is thrown away. In Spain, this means 2.9 million tons of food is tossed out each year. That represents €250 per person per year. But the most alarming thing is that this food could have been consumed if it had been subjected to better planning, storing and conservation. The study also reveals that approximately 30% of food thrown out was left unopened, in its original packaging, although it points out, too that fruit and vegetables account for "about 50%" of the total of discarded foodstuffs.>Spanish consumers are not aware of the amount of food they throw out, believing that it is around the "4% mark, whereas the reality is 18%," according Cofresco, the German-American group that promoted the study.

The most common reason for throwing food away is lack of planning, the result of "attractive presentation" that incites to "too much impulse shopping" and the preparation of "too much food at home that is not eaten" (and presumably languishes in the fridge for too long, says Prospero, who at this instant is headed for lunch, when food will be rescued from the back of at least one fridge shelf...)

Via a project being carried out on the social networks in cooperation with Action Against Hunger (Acción Contra el Hambre in Spanish) called Save Food, Cofresco Frischhalteprodukt, manufacturer of products to maintain food fresh and for their disposal such as Albal and Primapack, aims at raising consumer awareness about this problem. (Note: this paragraph was part of a press release from the company; the aim of the campaign is evidently to sell more of their products - but we'd rather this than the enormous waste of more traditional advertising campaigns.)

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