Films

Film SynopsisAmazing but true: On the way from the farm to the dining-room table, more than half the food lands in the dump, most of it before it ever reaches consumers. For instance, every other head of lettuce or potato.

European households throw away 100 billion Euros worth of food each year, as much as the annual turnover at Nestlé, the world´s largest food corporation. The food we throw away in Europe would be enough to feed all the hungry people in the world two times over. Why are ever-greater quantities being destroyed? We seek explanations: from supermarket sales staff and managers, from bakers, wholesale market inspectors, welfare recipients, ministers, farmers and EU bureaucrats. It’s a system that we all take part in: Supermarkets constantly have the complete selection of merchandise on offer, the bread on the shelves has to be fresh until late in the evening and everything has to look just right…one withered leaf of lettuce, a crack in a potato or a bruise on an apple and the goods are tossed out; containers of yogurt as early as two days before the ‘sell by’ date has expired.

Agriculture is responsible for producing more than one-third of the greenhouse gases worldwide because farming requires energy, fertilizers and land. What’s more, whenever food rots away at a garbage dump, methane escapes into the atmosphere, a climate gas with an effect 25 times as powerful as carbon dioxide. In other words: wasting half of our food has a disastrous impact on the world’s climate.