英国乐购(Tesco)公司近日对外公布了在其产销链中存在的严重食品浪费问题。数据显示，作为全球三大零售业巨头之一，仅今年上半年，乐购在英国本土的超市门店就浪费了近3万吨食物。
Supermarket giant Tesco has revealed it generated almost 30,000 tonnes of food waste in the first six months of 2013.
Of that total, 21% was made up of fruit and vegetables and 41% of bakery items.
Using its own data and industry-wide figures, it also estimated that across the UK food industry as a whole, 68% of salad to be sold in bags was wasted - 35% of it thrown out by customers.
Shopper Carmen Weir says she buys extra food if it is on special offer in the supermarket
The retailer is introducing measures to reduce wastage including developing promotions for smaller bags of salad.
The latest figures published by the Waste and Resources Action Programme (Wrap) suggested 15 million tonnes of food went to waste in the UK in 2010. Figures for 2012 will be published next month.
Publishing its food waste figures for the first time, Tesco said that, in the first six months of this year, its stores and distribution centres generated 28,500 tonnes of food waste.
The largest proportion of that - about 11,700 tonnes - was classified as "bakery", and the second largest category, making up around a fifth of the total, was fruit and vegetables.
Dairy products and convenience foods such as ready meals each made up 8% of the waste, impulse buys such as confectionery and soft drinks accounted for 6%, and meat, fish and poultry for 5%.
The remainder of the waste was split between other categories such as alcohol, cereals and frozen food.
Tesco said that, where possible, if food could not be sold it was either donated to poverty charity FareShare, converted into animal feed for livestock, or was recycled into renewable fuel.
Prime Minister David Cameron recently praised the FareShare charity and, on Monday, his spokesman told a regular Westminster briefing: "There will be widespread concern about levels of food that go to waste and that's why the prime minister has noted the excellent work that FareShare does."
Tesco has also given wastage estimates for the 25 best-selling products across the UK food industry as a whole.
The figures were based on waste data from Tesco supermarkets, distribution centres, suppliers and producers - combined with Wrap figures on levels of waste in UK homes.
It estimated that 24% of grapes were wasted between the vine and the fruit bowl and that a fifth of all bananas were unused - with one-in-10 thrown away by customers.
It also suggested some 40% of apples and 47% of bakery items in the UK were wasted.(BBC)
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在这份该公司首次对外公开的数据清单中，排在最大浪费量首位的是各类面包和点心，在上半年被浪费的共计28500吨食物中，11700吨都是面包房销售的食物。位列第二的是水果和蔬菜，占到总浪费数量的五分之一，约5700吨。随后是方便食品和乳制品，数量均为2280吨。
此外，排在浪费榜单前十位的食物还有：糖果和软饮料，占总数的6%，约1710吨;肉类和鱼类，占总数的5%，约1425吨，以及奶酪、冷冻食品、各类谷物和啤酒，分别占总数的2%，约为570吨。
综合公司内部各产销部门的数据和整个英国零售业的数据，乐购公司预测，在整个英国食品行业，68%的沙拉食材销售后不是被食用，而是被扔进垃圾桶。其中，35%的浪费是由消费者造成的。
除了沙拉食材以外，超市中售出的苹果，有40%最终被丢掉，20%的香蕉会被浪费，还有24%的葡萄也难逃被丢进垃圾桶的厄运。
想想每年全球仍有1000万人因饥饿而死亡，这份清单顿时显得无比沉重和罪恶。
乐购公司称，他们公开此份清单的目的正是要为人们敲醒警钟，提醒人们珍惜食物，杜绝浪费。例如，人们可以选择购买小份的袋装沙拉，商家可以提供容量较小的购物筐或者手推车，也可以撕掉贴在新鲜水果和蔬菜上面的“保质期”条码，让消费者及时吃掉而不是等到食物到期再不得不把它们扔掉。根据英国废物及资源行动组织发布的最新调查报告，2010年，英国境内共有1500万吨食物被浪费。
乐购商务总监马特•西米斯特说，虽然食物浪费并不是一朝一夕，或某个单一环节就能解决的问题，但只要每个商家和消费者都能行动起来，浪费的数量就会逐渐减少。
节省下来的食物可以捐赠给饱受饥饿之苦的人民，还可以转化成动物饲料，或是制造成可再生燃料加以再次利用。
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