Before it even gets to stores and homes, 55% of food goes to waste, with the commercial sector wasting 4.1 million tonnes of food a year. Yume wants every Australian to know the size of the issue. Read on for more commercial food waste facts and some solutions.

As individuals we can do our part by reducing the amount of food we send to landfill and composting, but, in Australia, 55% of all food waste, which equates to 4.1 million tonnes, comes from the commercial sector - i.e. manufacturers, wholesalers and farmers - before it even reaches supermarkets and homes!

Yume equates this commercial food waste to having 560 semi-trailer trucks full of food never reaching their destination, every day.

To raise awareness about the country’s excessive and avoidable commercial food waste, Yume, a surplus food online marketplace, together with Suez Group created the pictured food waste installation and have partnered to deliver innovative solutions to businesses in the food industry to prevent good quality food from going to waste.

The good news is that industry, the government and academia are all tackling the issue and a goal of halving food waste by 2030 in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) has been set. And so far, Yume’s online marketplace for surplus food has prevented over 1 300 000 kgs of food from going to waste, returning over $4.5 million to Aussie farmers and manufacturers, saved 88 million litres of water, and prevented 2,557 tonnes of C02 from being released.

To reach these goals and save more food from waste, step one is awareness!

Via this installation and other activations, Yume aims to educate people “on what food in the commercial sector means and looks like and why is so important that we start shining a spotlight on this issue”.

The facts:

• 7.3 Million tonnes go to waste every year in Australia according to the Australian Federal Government’s Food Waste Baseline report,

• 24% of the food waste comes from homes and 55% comes from primary producers, manufacturers, and the wholesale sector,

• food waste costs the Australian economy $6 billion each year,

• 500 semi-trailer trucks full of food go to waste every day, and

• 114 800 cars on the road is equivalent to Australia’s commercial food waste.

What can businesses do?:

• using technological solutions like food waste saving apps and Yume’s online marketplace to redistribute surplus food,

• reduce quality standards that over emphasise appearance and incentivise selling and eating ‘ugly fruit and veg’ and discounting food that needs to be sold at the end of the day,

• less confusing and overzealous sell-by dates and other labelling, and

• better food harvest, storage, processing, transport and retailing processes.