Companies and Industries

Many companies and supermarkets throw large quantities of food to landfills.  It is hard to report actual data calculating how much supermarkets dump because many times food companies  hide statistics that show how much food they dump per year. It is estimated that the following four big supermarkets; Morrison’s, Waitrose, Asda, and Sainsbury can save 33,000 tons of food a year but, (this is only an estimate). Supermarkets are constantly competing with one another, so they try to stack aisles of foods, showing customers that they have high quality of food supplies.

    -In the year 1997 the US Government estimated that retailers waste around 2.5 million tons of food each year in other words this is under 2 percent of the country's total food supply. This is seems like a small number but this data adds up every year. The food wasted can help many people across the country that has people starving.

    - WRAP reported that the retailers in the UK produce 1.6 million tons of food that is wasted and this data recorded through voluntaries by the retailers (Stuart).

    - CO-OP chain reported that in its report in 2007-2008 its stores threw away 10,000 tons of food (Stuart).

    - Costco approximately threw away 45 million pounds of food every year (Stuart).

   - In 2004 Sainsbury sent 70,000 tons of food waste to landfills interestingly though in 2006-2007 Sainsbury reported that it donated 6,680 tons of food showing that 90 percent of food is sent to landfills.

    - When companies throw out food the food thrown away are sometimes foods that are edible but was thrown away because the food product was closed to one another. The food product that was either decomposed or had some visual flaws. Eggs, for example are in containers so when an egg or eggs breaks the entire dozen box of eggs are thrown out.

- The Environmental Protection Agency estimated that Americans waste about 30 million tons of food waste each year, 12 percent of the total waste stream. About 2 percent of that food waste ends up in landfills; 62 percent of yard waste is composted. (NYTimes)