Kaitlin Dawson: NZ Food Waste Champions Executive Director says food waste is a systemic issue

More than three billion dollars' worth of household food gets thrown in the bin every year. 

The Prime Minister's Chief Science Advisor, Dame Juliet Gerrard, has issued the government 27 recommendations, including a reduction target. 

Executive Director of NZ Food Waste Champions Kaitlin Dawson told Mike Hosking that we need to focus on other ways to lower the figures. 

She says there's waste in retail, farming, and manufacturing but overall, it's a system issue. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The old food wasted argument is back. We're throwing away
three point two billion dollars in food every year. Government
being issued twenty seven recommendations to reduce the waste, including
formulating a national plan of action and a reduction target. Now,
the executive director of New Zealand Food Waste Champions, Caitlan Dawson,
is with this Caitland morning to you.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Do you reckon? We're ever capable quite intro that? Well,
I'm figuring if you're going to call yourself instead of
calling yourself New Zealand Food Waste you know incorporated, and
you're going to throw champions on the end, it deserves
a bit of bit of.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Umpha and absolutely I'll take it.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
Yeah, good on you. So how do we get around
this because this is not new three point two but
it's billions every year, has been for years, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Absolutely? But I will just say that that number you're
talking about is actually just at the household level, So
that's not the amount of food waste that is occurring
up and down the supply chain from farm to fork.
That's just what we waste at household. So it's a
lot more money than three point.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
Two billion, I reckon if we actually got our act together,
we wouldn't have a cost of BLO crisis, would we
Because it seems we have no money and yet we
can throw three billion dollars worth of food away.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
That's exactly right. And so food waste is really it's
a system problem, and we've never taken a system view.
We've had quite a focus on household like you've just
been talking about, and so these reports are providing us
with the evidence to tackle it in the system way.
And so what I mean by that is that you know,

(01:25):
there's waste on farm, there's waste in manufacturing and retail,
and often decisions that are made at one of those
stages affect waste in another part. And so, like you've
just said, food waste is costed in at every single
part of the food system. And so if we just
look at it in that way and get everyone pulling
in the same direction, we'll actually be able to shift

(01:47):
the dial.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
How much is not our fault? I buy four bananas,
one turns out to be a bit dodgy, I throw
it out, So that this sort of wasn't my fault,
or it was my fault, you know what I'm saying
it's not like I buy a big roast. I only
have one meal or four others, and I think, oh, well,
it can't be bother that it's in the bin.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
Yeah. I mean, so much of what we do at
home is impacted by what we see on the retail
shelves or what we see on the packaging. And you know,
you might be buying four bananas because we'll probably not bananas,
but you might be getting two for one specials and
that kind of thing, which seem like a good idea
at the time, but then when you get home, you
actually don't need, say, two heads of broccoli. So sure,

(02:25):
there are mechanisms that are in place that might influence
waste at home, and I wouldn't say it's necessarily anyone's fault.
It's just a behavior that's that's kind of baked in,
just like in business processes upstream and manufacturers, the processes
are baked in and it's not even identified until they
start measuring or looking at it, which is why these

(02:46):
sorts of directives are so integral.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
I've enjoyed talking. Do you have a great weekend. We'll
talk next year, shall we. Caitlin Dawson, executive director of
the New Food New Zealand Food Waste Champions. For more
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