Fighting food waste, one curvy cucumber at a time.
As much as 40% of food produced globally is wasted.
And when food is wasted, all the water and energy used to grow it is at risk of being lost too. Most people don’t realise it, but food waste is a climate issue – and one of the most urgent ones at that.
Food waste is responsible for approximately 10% of all greenhouse gas emissions.
The environmental impact of food waste is around 248x bigger than plastic.
As much as 2.5 billion tonnes of food are wasted globally each year.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. In fact, Project Drawdown has identified ‘reducing food waste’ as the number one solution to solve climate change.
So what are we waiting for?
Want to know more about the link between food waste and climate change?
Watch the video we made for COP26.
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Getting to the roots of the problem.
A lot of what we do at Oddbox focuses on tackling food waste on farms. Around 1.2 billion tonnes of fruit and veg are lost at this stage of the food system annually.
Around 25% of food waste in the UK happens on farms – more than retail, manufacturing and hospitality put together.
Fruit and veg can be at risk of going to waste on farms for all kinds of reasons, but it tends to be because it falls into one of two categories:
"Too odd"
This is fruit and veg that won’t meet retailers’ strict cosmetic specifications – it could be on the small side, be an unusual shape or colour or have been marked in some way while growing.
"Too many"
Sometimes the weather causes more crops to grow than predicted. Sometimes orders get cancelled. And all too often, challenges around demand forecasting simply mean growers have more than is needed.
How are we helping?
By being ‘grower-led’.
Instead of telling growers what we want, which is how the food system usually works, we speak to them each week to find out what they’ve already grown and what’s going spare.
By only rescuing the “too odd” and “too many”.
Every piece of fruit and veg we rescue from growers is at risk of going to waste for one of these reasons – in lots of cases, for more than one reason.
By being flexible and reliable.
We help growers harvest and sell their fruit and veg by being a reliable secondary market. And we're always open to last minute rescues if something unexpected crops up.
What about food waste at home?
Around 70% of food wasted after it’s left the farm is wasted in our kitchens. We help our community use up every last leek by:
- Sending out a low-waste recipe with each box, and sharing lots more online
- Offering an easy-to-use, ingredient-led recipe generator
- Sharing lots of tips and hacks to make food last longer and go further
- Championing a creative, flexible way of cooking – check out our cookbook, 'Crunch Time'
Every carrot counts.
So far, you’ve helped us rescue the equivalent to over 96 million meals - over 40,000 tonnes of fruit and veg.
16,072 TONNES = “TOO MANY”
13,118 TONNES = “TOO ODD”
Every box makes a difference – by rescuing a Medium Fruit & Veg box every week for three months, you’d save a whopping 85kg of fruit and veg. Roughly 200 meals’ worth.
- ‘As much as 40% of food produced globally is wasted’ can be found in the Driven to Waste Report, WWF, 2021.
- ‘Food waste is responsible for approximately 10% of all greenhouse gas emissions” can be found in the Driven to Waste Report Summary, WWF, 2021.
- ‘The environmental impact of food waste is around 248x bigger than plastic’. 1kg of food waste to landfill produces the same carbon emissions as landfilling a staggering 25,000 500ml plastic bottles. Zero Waste Scotland, 2021.
- ‘As much as 2.5 billion tonnes of food are wasted globally each year’ can be found in the Driven to Waste Report, WWF, 2021.
- ‘Project Drawdown has identified ‘reducing food waste’ as the number one solution to solve climate change’ (in line with a 2 degree world by 2050). This can be found on the Drawdown website here and here.
- ‘Around 1.2 billion tonnes of fruit and veg are lost at this stage of the food system annually’ can be found in the Driven to Waste Report, WWF, 2021.
- ‘Around 25% of food waste in the UK happens on farms – more than retail, manufacturing and hospitality put together’ can be found in the Driven to Waste Report, WWF, 2021.
- ‘Around 70% of food wasted after its left the farm is wasted in our kitchens’. When we say 'on farms' we are talking about primary production which includes: harvest, transport, storage, grading and packaging. Read more here.
- ‘So far, you’ve helped us rescue the equivalent to 90 million meals - over 34,000 tonnes of fruit and veg. 10,619 tonnes = “too many” and 8,903 tonnes = “too odd’ (since 2021) based on internal calculations at Oddbox.
- ‘Every box makes a difference – by rescuing a Medium Fruit & Veg box every week for three months, you’d save a whopping 85kg of fruit and veg. Roughly 200 meals’ worth’ based on impact calculations at Oddbox.