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Would accurate food labels increase sustainability? http://ow.ly/wNYW9
Steve Schueth
President, First Affirmative Financial Network; Producer, The Conference for Sustainable, Responsible, Impact Investing
Top Contributor
Misleading Food Labels – Who Really Wins? | First Affirmative Leadership Blog ow.ly
Americans waste billions of pounds of food every year due to the false notion that sell-by and best-before dates indicate food safety.
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Peter Burgess
Founder/CEO at TrueValueMetrics developing Multi Dimension Impact Accounting
Top Contributor
It was Ralph Nader back in the 1970s who started the movement to improve the labeling of goods being sold to American consumers. That is about 40 years ago!
Some companies take labeling seriously. Others game the system so that labeling helps increase sales in ways that are unhelpful. Society does not seem to be paying much attention ... and companies keep on with their games.
One of my pet peeves is 'unit pricing'. Many of these confuse rather than clarify ... and store staff often do not know what a unit price is. Not surprising, given the pay scale for retail help!
What I want to see, is information about the supply chain and the environmental footprint of products on store shelves. This could be a game changer.
Peter Burgess - TrueValueMetrics
Multi Dimension Impact Accounting
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Simon Agius
Simon
Simon Agius
Rural Trade & Traceability Director at RurApp Inc
Yes, accurate food labels would improve sustainability.
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Henry Balikov
Assisting senior management address external stakeholder issues and internal performance improvement
I understand the point being made that: '...Americans waste billions of pounds of food every year due to the false notion that “sell-by” and “best-before” dates indicate food safety.' Can someone provide examples of the best current food labeling or places where such labeling is required? Thanks
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Olena Rudna
MBA, ISE Research Assistant
The best way to position a product from the environmental perspective is to deliver a message for customers not to buy one if they do not need it.
Discussion on expiration/best use before date labeling has many different opinions. However, I prefer to see labels which clearly explain the last day I can use a product absolutely safely while expecting the taste or quality to be the best. Even though it MAY BE USED under certain circumstances with some extensions.
Regarding to waste concept: although I don’t have statistics on food and other products waste from developing countries, I can say for sure that the waste there is minimal, due to people conscious spending behavior. Considering that fact, that the daily consumption of routine products such as food and household needs takes a great part of a household income (sometimes it accumulates up to 80% of monthly income), the concept of waste is just not affordable.
Therefore, while companies are working actively on cost reduction by elimination waste of all kinds, for example by integrating JIT inventory method in their production, milk run approach into logistic operations and by engaging into co-opetition within the industry, the culture of consumption must be changed and integrated in the daily norm of consumers' buying behavior with the key meaning of avoiding, eliminating or, at least, reducing waste. If we have lean production concept, why don’t we have lean consumption one???
So it is misconception to put all responsibility of waste elimination solely on companies. In the end of the day, they just respond to their stakeholders’ signals. Customers are most important of stakeholder' groups. When we change our attitude to purchasing strategy, companies will also change to reflect these changes.
Regarding to Peter’s comment …. Many companies obtain eco-labels to show information of the product supply chain and the environmental footprint. Unfortunately, it is up to 500 eco-labels available today. How familiar an average consumer with them? Meaning of how many we know for sure? Although it is easy today to use internet in our phones to possess any information, how long does it take to evaluate three or four different eco-labels before making a final decision to buy the pack of an ice cream? Are we willing to spend this time?
Consumers’ education on wise consumption is the best field where companies can invest today to diminish ecological impact and improve KPI of product LCA, and only then smart labeling will add value to a product.
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