Waste Not, Want Not: Social Enterprises Tackling Food Waste

October 17, 2024 Impact, Business, Environment, Food

*Chris Locke from Crowd Sauce in the Moving Feast Kitchen at QVM*

Did you know that food waste occurs at every stage of the supply chain? Here’s a shocking stat. Around 25% of produce never even leaves the farm, with logistical issues and market fluctuations seeing edible produce land on the garbage pile. Then there are supermarkets.

They force aesthetic standards on fresh fruit and veggies, with the produce deemed too ugly or too big to sell adding to the growing mountain of discarded food.

How we treat food in our kitchens is also an urgent issue. At 30%, households are the leading contributor to food waste in Australia. People buy too much, get bored with the same meal, don’t store leftovers properly and confuse best-before dates.

These issues contribute significantly to Australia's 5.32 million tonnes of annual edible food waste.

Despite soaring cost-of-living challenges, the average Australian household spends about $2,000 per year on wasted food. The effect on the climate is also staggering.

While people are increasingly conscious of where their energy and groceries come from, many overlook the immense greenhouse gas emissions created by food waste.

Rotting organic food emits methane – an emission 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide over 100 years – accounting for 3% of Australia’s annual greenhouse gas emissions.

After factoring in the wasted gigalitres and petajoules required to produce food, the ecological impact of food waste is stark. Put simply, if global food waste were a country, only the U.S. and China would contribute more emissions.

The situation is serious, but so are the social enterprises tackling this complex issue.

From discount grocers specialising in short-dated products to sauces made from odd-shaped vegetables, getting creative about mitigating food waste offers a way forward.

Here, we explore the social enterprises redirecting food from the bin to a place with purpose.

By Hudson Brown

Cheaper Buy Miles

Cheaper Buy Miles recognised the need to tackle food waste almost 30 years ago, with its first discount grocery store opening in Footscray, Melbourne in 1995.

Now, locations in Flemington, Brunswick and Fitzroy stock products close to or past their best-before date, with the full spectrum of groceries and household items available for significant savings.

Although major supermarkets would put much of the products sold at Cheaper Buy Miles in the bin, this approach has prevented millions of tonnes of food waste.

The low-cost model also helps vulnerable people navigate the cost-of-living crisis.

And it’s inspired others. In 2023, sisters Maggie and Katie Quach opened Beyond Best Before, a similar store based in Newtown, Sydney.

Cirque du Soil

Launched in 2019, Cirque du Soil’s regenerative food waste processes are helping to transform inner Melbourne into a circular ecosystem.

Conceived around a community compost collective, the organisation gathers food waste from residents and businesses to divert it from landfills. This material is then transformed locally into a nutrient-rich fertilizer.

Finally, this powerful product returns to the community it came from as plant food for local gardens, fertilizer products and regenerative initiatives, such as black soldier fly composting systems.

By using the food scraps we produce to grow more food for the community, this circular approach converts what we consider waste into something far more powerful.

Food waste to kokedama workshop at Cirque du Soil. Photo by Beulah International.

Foody Bag

Hospitality businesses are another significant source of food waste in Australia. According to the New South Wales Environment Protection Authority, thrown-away food makes up 62 per cent of the average cafe or restaurant bin, leading to 281 million meals ending up in landfill each year.

Foody Bag helps businesses tackle this issue by making it easier to sell unsold food at heavily discounted prices.

Operating from Perth, customers can check the app for bakeries, cafes, restaurants and supermarkets advertising goody bags loaded with the day's remaining products.

With these items often available at less than half price, savvy users can find a great deal on delicious treats. Meanwhile, businesses earn extra revenue, slash food waste disposal costs and ultimately divert perfectly edible food from the bin.

Open Table

Preventing food waste at home doesn’t have to be a solitary experience. Since 2013, Open Table has shared free food with neighbourhoods across Melbourne, intending to deliver fresh and nutritious meals without the waste.

What started with a small community dinner has become a weekly vegetarian feast using ingredients saved from landfill.

In addition, Open Table hosts the No Waste Cook Club, where virtual and in-person cooking classes teach participants how to produce simple, delicious meals that minimise food waste.

Collecting surplus food from 21 local suppliers, the small team behind Open Table saved an estimated 50 tonnes of food waste from landfills in 2023.

Open Sauce

Led by Moving Feast – a network of several prominent food and social enterprises – Open Sauce explores how surplus produce can be diverted from landfills and reimagined as viable food products.

Alongside wasteless recipes, self-auditing tools and over 100 ongoing ideas that reframe food waste as a resource, supporters can purchase Open Sauce products.

Acquiring oversupplied ingredients from farms, food systems social enterprise STREAT - also part of the Moving Feast network - offers a lineup of tasty seasonal jams and pickled goods. For instance, the team uses Bimbimbi Organic Farm’s excess strawberries to produce its strawberry and rhubarb jam.

Meanwhile, STREAT’s chefs artfully combine off-cut watermelon rind from their kitchen with garden bay and allspice to create a savoury pickle spread.