食品ロスを減らすために

Food that could still be eaten but is thrown away, so-called "food loss", has become a major problem. According to one estimate, about five million tons of food loss is produced in Japan in a year. This figure exceeds the amount of food distributed to people around the world who are short of food. Reducing food loss also leads to reducing the amount of rubbish and the cost of processing it. Food loss occurs not only in homes but also in large amounts at supermarkets and convenience stores. One cause is throwing away products close to their best-before date without selling them. Also, vegetables that taste fine are sometimes not sold because they look bad. So one shop began an initiative of selling products close to their date at a discount. The number of customers who come specifically for the discounted products increased, and the amount thrown away reportedly fell to about half of what it had been. However, there is a limit to what shops' efforts alone can do. We consumers, too, should make a point of buying only the amount we really need when shopping. Also, just by checking the inside of the refrigerator regularly and using older items first, we can reduce loss from households. In some regions, the number of restaurants where you can take home food you could not finish is also increasing. The accumulation of small habits produces big change.