Onion skins and vegetable scraps simmering down into a stockpot, bread crackling in butter until it becomes croutons or French toast. We often forget how heat can turn scraps into something new. How vinegar, salt and water can transform cucumbers into pickles. How sugar turns surplus fruit into jams, or how drying stretches the life of herbs and tomatoes. Part of the reason why we forget is likely because of the language we use around food. ‘Gone bad’, ‘spoiled’, ‘scraps’, ‘waste’, these words suggest that what sits before us has lost its worth.
Anyone who grows, preserves, ferments, or freezes their own food quickly discovers that what we call “waste” is often nothing more than unused value. A bruised apple is not waste, it embodies the land, water, fertilizer, labour, and fossil fuels that went into producing it. To ‘catch’ that value, surplus apples can become juice, cider, or feed for animals. Bread unsold at a bakery can nourish people at a food bank. When we see it this way, ‘food waste’ does not need to exist, it is simply a symptom of broken systems and broken relationships: between abundance and need, between planetary limits and human appetites, and between farmers and eaters.
Abundance and need
Approximately one third of all food produced globally is wasted, to the detriment of biodiversity and the climate. This isn’t just a consumer issue, it’s also a consequence of structural overproduction. For farmers, overproduction is a form of risk-management, which is why we see farmers growing more than markets will absorb. They do this because contracts with supermarkets and processors penalize shortages but rarely protect against surplus (by, for example, guaranteeing the buyer will purchase the extra). Due to a fear of loss, supermarkets set arbitrary cosmetic standards, by which the consumer is trained to reject “imperfect” vegetables and fruits, even when they are nutritionally identical to their aesthetically pleasing and symmetrical counterparts. This creates a system that relies on permanent abundance.
On the flip side of abundance, we have need. While millions around the world go hungry or lack access to nutritious food, perfectly edible produce is left to rot or is discarded.
Planetary limits and appetites
Fixing the problem requires more than asking consumers to throw away less. It calls for systemic redesign, thousands of small changes across the food system to bring it into balance. Such changes are part of the post-growth perspective, which is about fundamentally reimagining the economy, in such a way that its success is no longer measured by continuous economic growth (through GDP), but instead through our ability to meet human needs within planetary boundaries. For the food system, this means, among other things, reducing surpluses and focusing on local alternatives to perishable imports. We also need to redistribute surpluses through food-sharing platforms and start preserving our food.
At the same time, processing surpluses and informing consumers isn’t enough. Recent research by Hegwood et al. (2023) describes how reducing food waste could lessen the environmental impacts of food systems and improve food security, but explains that this would be followed by a rebound effect. Wherein, the efficiency improvements would cause price decreases and consumption increases, counteracting the initial benefit of the avoided food waste. Globally, such rebound effects could counteract roughly 65% of avoided food loss and waste. These types of studies demonstrate that reducing waste at the end of the chain only works in conjunction with broader reforms throughout the food system, based on post-growth and respect for healthy eating.
If we take phosphorus as an example, we see that this element is essential for food production as an ingredient in fertilizers, yet is so overused that it disrupts ecosystems and risks scarcity. To redesign how we use phosphorus, we could adopt circular solutions – recovering it from wastewater or switching to compost or alternative fertilizers wherever possible.
Phosphorus over-use is just one example of how food production breaches planetary boundaries. Others include overuse of water, greenhouse gas emissions from livestock, and the conversion of forests, wetlands, and grasslands into cropland. With sufficiency-oriented agriculture the focus shifts from producing ever more to producing what is needed, in balance with ecological limits.
The relationship between farmer and eater
The break in the relationship between farmer and eater is evident in many of the unhealthy consumption habits we’ve developed. Expecting strawberries in December. Opting for convenient pre-cut, plastic-wrapped fruits that often go bad faster than whole produce. And choosing dining experiences not for health or hunger, but as a display of status.
Those who no longer see how food is produced are more likely to waste it or take it for granted. Building shorter, more transparent connections can reduce surplus and foster appreciation for food and farmers. This can be achieved by involving consumers more closely with farms through tourism or markets, and by supporting shops that source locally. Cooperatives, short supply chains, and risk sharing make the food system more resilient. Of course, this doesn’t have to be limited to the farm next door; it can also be achieved through digital channels. A company like CrowdFarming, through its “adopt-an-orange-tree-in-Spain” system, can easily inspire greater food economy in the Netherlands as well. These may seem like small steps, but together they contribute to the critical mass needed to shift the social norm around food waste and to foster greater appreciation for both the farmer and the land that produces our food.
A well-kept recipe
These approaches are nothing new. There is no food waste in nature – fallen fruit feeds animals, decomposing matter nourishes soil, and nothing is left unused. Similarly, in traditional countryside homesteads, all food had a purpose: surplus was preserved, scraps fed livestock, peelings went to compost. The challenge is to design modern, large-scale systems that mimic these natural cycles and the resourceful practices of traditional homesteads. Therefore, not avoiding food waste, but restoring our relationship with food so that waste simply no longer exists.
This article was written by Pjotr Tjallema & Matija Kajić. It was translated to Dutch and published on the website ‘Foodlog’.