Since its beginnings, Slow Food has grown into a global movement involving millions of people, in over 150 countries, working to ensure everyone has access to good, clean and fair food.
Slow Food believes food is tied to many other aspects of life, including culture, politics, agriculture and the environment. Through our food choices we can collectively influence how food is cultivated, produced and distributed, and as a result bring about great change.
Slow Food envisions a world in which all people can access and enjoy food that is good for them, good for those who grow it and good for the planet.
EVEN though sub-Saharan Africa is the region with the highest prevalence of undernourishment, affecting about one in four people, between 30% and 40% of food produced on the continent for human consumption is lost or wasted.
Earlier this month, this concern brought together hundreds of residents in Nairobi for the continent’s first "Disco Soup” - an international grassroots movement to raise awareness of food waste in the hope that this can be rolled back in a continent that suffers in the midst of plenty.
Organized by Marah Koeberle, a resident with a background in the food industry, the volunteer-led event in Kenya focused on food waste—what is rejected due to the cosmetic standards of European supermarkets. This is basically food that was not the right size or shape, or simply unattractive.
In Kenya alone, horticultural companies claim that they waste on average between 15-35% of their crops because of the high specifications on appearance by European Union supermarkets. This is also the case for every tone of fruit and vegetable grown in Kenya and exported to destinations in Europe, Middle East, South Africa and South East Asia where approximately 35%-40% of food waste occurs.
Unfortunately, due to high transportation and storage costs, rejected produce is not re-distributed and is instead used as feed for pigs and cows. This is in a country where an estimated 1.3 million people are food insecure and in need of assistance.
By contacting one of the leading grower-exporters in the international horticultural industry, organizers of Disco Soup Nairobi were able to gather fruits and vegetables from various small holding farms, large export pack houses, manufacturing plants and even restaurants for the event.
Once the food was gathered, participants cooked it, ate it and also distributed it to street-children in the city - all while enjoying tunes from local DJs and musicians.
Globally, food waste happens through the entire supply chain and roughly one-third of the edible parts of food produced for human consumption, gets lost or is wasted. According to the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), that is about 1.3 billion tons per year. In industrialized countries food waste (222 million tons) is almost as high as the total net food production in sub-Saharan Africa (230 million tons).
Food waste for cosmetic reasons is common across the continent but there are also vast quantities of food "loss”. Food loss refers to food that gets spoilt along the supply chain and in sub-Saharan Africa; food loss per capita is estimated at 120-170 kg/year.
In most African nations, like most low-income countries across the world, these losses (40%) tend to occur early in the food supply chain - between the field and the market. Unlike industrialized countries, much less food is wasted at the consumer level. The causes of this food loss are predominantly poor practices in harvesting, careless handling of produce, lack of storage or poor storage conditions and transportation.
Even though Nigeria is ranked 16th on the global tomato production scale, accounting for 1.2% of the total world production of tomatoes, an alarming 45% of tomatoes harvested in the country is lost due to poor Food Supply Chain (FSC) management.