This is the content for our website, text wise (we might change it up a bit later...). Since our audience is children and their parents, we were thinking of keeping the information easy to read e.g. bullet points.
We
will probably have a lot of pictures paired with the statistics to get across our information.
About Page:
Ugly fruit and vegetables are a fact of life, although you've probably never seen them in a supermarket. This is because most of them are thrown away. It isn't because there's anything wrong with them; they taste just as good, they're grown just the same. They're just a little aesthetically challenged.
Globally, around a third to half of all our food produced is never eaten, and wasted fruit plays a big part in that. It's a big problem, but we'll start with something small. If we buy ugly, we can show others that it's what's on the inside that counts.
(These are all the little things you can do to help make this world a little uglier)?
Supermarket waste:
Supermarket Beauty Standards:
Supermarkets are very picky when it comes to what fruit and veges they sell. In some ways they have to be; no one wants to buy a maggot-infested apple. More and more nowadays, however, standards are all about the look.
Some call them beauty standards, and they're not too far off; supermarkets believe what customers want is the perfect looking fruit. If an apple isn't round enough or a tomato isn't the right shade of red, then it doesn't matter how tasty it is- it's not good enough to be sold.
Supermarket standards create waste from the get-go. Farmers first grow the produce and then separate the fruit that meets the standards from the fruit that doesn't. Some farmers don't even bother harvesting what they know supermarkets won't sell.
The problem with this is that most of the rejected fruit is still edible- it's just ugly. Tonnes of perfectly good fruit and veges are wasted every year all because supermarkets believe no one wants an ugly fruit.
Where does food waste begin? (Wastage happens at every step: production (growing), handling, storage, processing, distribution and consumption.)
Production waste (on the farm):
- From farm to fork, about one third of all food produced is wasted.
- 28% of the world's agricultural land is used every year to make food that is wasted.
- In developing countries production (growing and harvesting) is where they waste most of their food, while in higher income countries most food is wasted at a consumer level.
Supermarket waste:
- 15% of food waste happens at the retail level (while it's being sold.)
- The most wasted products in supermarkets are things like bagged salads, apples and grapes.
- 'Sell by' dates are one of the biggest causes of waste in supermarkets. After food has passed this date, it is thrown out, when in fact sell by dates have nothing to do with whether the food is still good or not.
Our (consumer) waste:
- 55 to 65% of food wastage happens at the consumer level (after we buy it).
- 20% of the food we buy never gets eaten.
- 90% of us throw away food too soon.
- Each one of us throws out nearly 135kg of food a year.
What you can do (as a consumer) to
reduce waste:
Buy less:
Buy only what you need. Although it's tempting to buy in bulk, it has been proven that you are far more likely to waste if you have extra food. Sticking to a shopping list is a good way to stop impulse buying.
Support supermarkets that are waste conscious:
Buy from places that sell ugly fruit and vegetables, or if there aren't any places that do this near you-
Buy your fruit and veges at your local farmer's market:
Since they don't have to follow supermarket's strict rules about appearance, farmer's markets are more accepting of fruit and veges that are a little more on the ugly side.
Eat leftovers:
Eating your leftovers for dinner means there is less to throw out, and no need to buy more food for another night.
Donate your food:
If you're not going to eat it, don't throw it away! If the food is still good donate the to a food bank, for someone else to eat.
What supermarkets
can do to reduce waste:
Relax their standards:
If supermarkets weren't so fussy in the first place about what is attractive enough to be sold, there would be less food wasted before it even makes it to the supermarket shelves.
Buy less:
Supermarkets buy more than they know they will sell to create the illusion of abundance. They can still make money doing this, but it means a lot of fruit gets thrown away that doesn't need to be. If they bought smaller amounts they were more likely to sell they would waste a lot less.
Donate leftover food:
Food that isn't necessarily bad is oftentimes chucked out because it is past it's sell by date. Food banks and charities are good places to send the food that would otherwise be wasted.
Other things that have to be sorted out:
- The language-- does it have to be simplified for children?
- Wireframes (colours, fonts, layout...)
- Add more to bullet points (or simplify / refine what is already there?)
- Also, we might condense some of these sections into one page, for example the supermarket and consumer 'what can you do?' pages, since there is some overlap.
