20 Feb 2013

KENYA / FOOD WASTE

Hundreds of ministers and high-level officials dined on perfectly good food grown by Kenyan farmers but rejected by UK supermarkets due to cosmetic imperfections at the headquarters of the UN Environment Program (UNEP) inNairobito highlight a major campaign to cut massive levels of global food loss and waste. UNEP

Posted at: February 20, 2013 2:23 pm

Duration: 02:02

Available in: SD

DOWNLOAD

Full script

STORY: KENYA / FOOD WASTE
TRT: 2.02
SOURCE: UNEP
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS

DATELINE: 19 FEBRUARY 2013, NAIROBI, KENYA

SHOTLIST:

1. Wide shot of various chefs preparing the food. 
2. Med shot, chef grilling the corn.
3. Med shot, corn on the grill.
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Tristram Stuart, Feeding the 5000:
"When the United Nations Environment Program invited our organization to be a partners of the Think.Eat.Save campaign it was a huge opportunity. To start, we've come to Nairobi and feed the Ministers and other UN diplomats who are coming here tonight with food that otherwise would have been wasted." 
5. Close up, baby corn dish being prepared.
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Tristram Stuart, Feeding the 5000:
"It was however a daunting task. We didn't know that we were going to be able to source good quality food, because you would expect a country where there are millions of hungry people to be using everything that it grows.  Unfortunately 'waste not, want not' is not a motto that is implemented here in Kenya. The scale of waste is colossal. And it has shocked me; indeed it has distressed me to see, particularly, what we found in the export market."
7. Close up, chef preparing a dish.
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Tristram Stuart, Feeding the 5000:
"I'll give you an example: I met a grower who was wasting 40 percent of the vegetables that he was growing for a UK supermarket.  Why was he wasting them? Primarily the issue is the cosmetic standards that are laid down by the UK supermarket. So that beans have to be not too long and not too short. If they are too long he has to cut off a third of the bean and waste it. That's a waste of a third of all resources that went into growing that bean."
9. Med shot, corn on the grill.
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Tristram Stuart, Feeding the 5000:
"So what we've done over the last week is that we've gone down to all these exporters who are not oblivious to the scandalous nature of waste in food. They've donated us, very kindly, the food to feed environment ministers and UN diplomats from around the world with food that otherwise would have been wasted. Now our message is simply to say, the solution to this problem is to eat and enjoy food rather than throwing it away.  And there are a lot of ways in which we can implement that simple motto."
3. Various shots, delegates and Ministers eating food rejected by the UK market.

STORYLINE:

Hundreds of ministers and high-level officials yesterday (19 February) dined on perfectly good food grown by Kenyan farmers but rejected by UK supermarkets due to cosmetic imperfections at the headquarters of the UN Environment Program (UNEP) in Nairobi to highlight a major campaign to cut massive levels of global food loss and waste.

Chef Ray Cournede, from Nairobi's prestigious Windsor Hotel, utilized the rescued food to cook a five-course meal that included such delights as Grilled Sweet Corn Tamales, Yellow Lentil Dal with Tamarind and Mangomisu, Tiramisu with a tropical twist. Cournede also prepared mango chutney and candied fruit peels, which show ways to preserve and use fruits when in season.

The zero-waste reception, taking place during a meeting of the first UNEP Governing Council under universal membership, was in support of Think.Eat.Save. Reduce Your Foodprint - an initiative launched in January by UNEP, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and partners such as Feeding the 5,000 and Messe Dusseldorf.

Tristram Stuart, food waste author and founder of 'Feeding the 5000', visited producers across Kenya to source around 1,600 kilograms of unwanted fruit and vegetables for the meal and for donation to local charities.

Stuart said that "It was however a daunting task".  During an interview in Nairobi he said that he didn't know that he was going to be able to source good quality food, because he said, "you would expect a country where there are millions of hungry people to be using everything that it grows". But he added, "unfortunately 'waste not, want not' is not a motto that is implemented here in Kenya. The scale of waste is colossal. And it has shocked me; indeed it has distressed me to see, particularly, what we found in the export market".

He gave the example of a farmer who was wasting 40 percent of the vegetables that he was growing for a UK supermarket, because of the cosmetic standards that were laid down by supermarkets in the UK.

Stuart stressed that the message is simply to say, "the solution to this problem is to eat and enjoy food rather than throwing it away.  And there are a lot of ways in which we can implement that simple motto".

According to FAO roughly 95 per cent of food loss and waste in developing countries are unintentional losses at early stages of the food supply chain due to financial, managerial and technical limitations in harvesting techniques; storage and cooling facilities in difficult climatic conditions; infrastructure; packaging and marketing systems.

However, in the developed world the end of the chain is far more significant. At the food manufacturing and retail level in the developed world, large quantities of food are wasted due to inefficient practices, quality standards that over-emphasize appearance, confusion over date labels and consumers being quick to throw away edible food due to over-buying, inappropriate storage and preparing meals that are too large.

Per-capita waste by consumers is between 95 and 115 kg a year in Europe and North America/Oceania, while consumers in sub-Saharan Africa, south and south-eastern Asia each throw away only 6 to 11 kg a year.