This is Rubbish

Food waste in Chilean farms on journalist's Jonathan Blooms Food Waste blog

UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, Jacque Diouf, said that the world must double food production by 2050 to ensure there is enough food for 9 billion people. Reducing food waste could help to meet this.

Ecotricity to offer "green gas contracts" i.e. they will generate methane from food waste and sell it to the grid.

This article argues says it's up to us as individuals to reduce food waste and that we shouldn't knock packaging if it helps to eliminate some of it

Sara Gilbert disagrees

British Gas to go ahead with 5 demonstration biomethane plants.

Modified tomatoes with a longer shelf life

Health inspectors in Chicago destroy a lot of fruit

As Food, Inc, a film which aims to do for the food industry what Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth did for climate change, gets an oscar nomination, more and more people are using sites like this one which sell clearance, short dated and out of date food otherwise destined for landfill. Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary, has not followed through on promises to get rid of the largely meaningless "best-before" labels that result in 370,000 tons of waste because supermarkets won't take goods with less than 75 per cent of the time before that date left to run. This article claims that every tonne of food waste generates 6.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide.

In a six month trial, airport transfer buses at East Midlands Airport will use fuel which is generated partly from food waste. Interestingly: "The airport looks to become carbon neutral by the year 2020".

Last Minute Market is an Italian initiative similar to Fareshare which transfers edible unsold food from shops to a number of charities assisting marginal people. Food shops are happy to take part as they benefit financially as they don't have to pay to dispose of the food.

In Australia, Waitrose and recycling company Cawleys have jointly been awarded by the Association for Organics Recycling Prize for their AD program which to date had generated a total of 400 megawatt hours of electricity. It is hoped that 95% of their waste will go to the program by 2013.

The average Tennessee grocery store discards about a thousand pounds of unsalable produce every week. In the past farmers could feed it to their animals but now it must be heated to be heated to 140 degrees beforehand (similar to the animal by-product regulations in the UK but a higher temperature). This author suspects that this is to make money for the disposal companies.

British Airways will establish Europe’s first plant for sustainable jet-fuel from waste biomass and plans to use the low-carbon fuel to power part of its fleet from 2014.

On the food-based initiative of WW2: "Outcomes were many and various. Mountains of food waste were saved. A wholesale conversion from cattle to arable farming came about. Alternative and ingenious methods of feeding hungry families were developed, often spontaneously, and on a local level. The domestic production of potatoes, oats, orchard fruits and root vegetables was encouraged."

An article on skipping in Cooperative stores in Leeds. When quizzed The Cooperative group point to their support of initiatives like Love Food Hate Waste which aim to tackle food waste in the home.

Environment minister Dan Norris yesterday announced his support for turning England into a ‘zero waste nation' and confirmed that a consultation on landfill bans is set to be launched in the next few weeks. However the measures mentioned to tackle food waste were kerbside collection and organic waste treatment facilities (AD and composting) and not tackling industrial food waste.

Quite a few statistics on food waste throughout the supply chain in the USA

"One composting project in Brazil would reduce the equivalent of 67,000 tons of CO2 by turning food waste from grocery stores into organic fertilizer. The project is then subject to United Nations approval. If approved, at a carbon trading price of $22 a ton, the project would collect nearly $1.5 million". Post-waste proccessing are always going to be more popular with businesses, unless they are persuaded that not wasting in the first place is more profitable.

Food-waste-powered street lamps. The preliminary design of the street lamp features a garbage bin at its base where food products can be deposited.  The waste is then composted and the methane from the waste powers the lamp at the top.

Tesco’s new distribution centre in Cheshire, is to be powered solely by AD

Euro MPs fight to restore wonky fruit ban. The much-condemned ban was lifted by the European Commission last July, ending food waste by cutting red tape surrounding the shape and uniformity of fresh produce. But Spanish MEPs tabled a plan to bring the ban back - and this afternoon they won the support of a majority on the European Parliament's Agriculture Committee. The issue now goes to the full Parliament for a vote although it is unlikely to be approved by EU ministers.

WAG has outlined proposals to introduce landfill bans for materials such as wood, metal, glass, plastic and food waste under legislative moves to help reach its Toward Zero Waste targets.