The agriculture ministry estimates more than 20 million tons of food get thrown out by restaurants, convenience stores and supermarkets each year in Japan. What can be done to reduce this food waste?

i’m confident something can be done.

i’m not confident something will be done.

this is hardly new. if there was a way to make money from it, it would have been done for decades.

The restaurants, conbini and supermarkets just pass that scrap cost on to the end consumer - so they won't take any action.

Open up food bank to take the best by dated which get thrown out. There is sometime 6 month difference between best by to used by dates. This will should only be accessed by the most vulnerable in Japans society. Single mother and father the elderly poor etc. Maybe Shinto priest and it order can be entrusted to organise these food banks.

in my country supermarkets are working with NGOs.

food before expiry giving away for free.than volunteers giving this food to these in need.old,vulnerable etc...

Japan dont need to invent a wheel-just to learn from others.

I have ideas but they won't be glamorous or profound:

sell all food for a lower price at the end of each working day. some bakeries do this.

donate still decent leftovers to volunteer-run soup kitchens and give away said food to anybody who'd like a hot meal for cheap or for free (this would save my bacon if I lived alone)

let the staff take these leftovers for free

allow customers to take home their left overs

if said food is no longer fit for human consumption, then give it to pig farms or as compost. give back to the soil what it has given to you.

I would give the same erudite yet obvious answers as previous comments,but if it were a cosy,well-paid government position for me, naturally I would suck my teeth and have to set up a lengthy consultation panel.

Reducing the amount produced is one answer.

Collect it, boil it up and give it to the poor as soup.

A. Educate customers to order smaller servings, needs a lead by the customer Gov.

B. Develop a charitable redistribution scheme for supermarkets customer

Conveyor belt sushi restaurants are some of the worst offenders. Plates and plates going around which all get thrown away, because everyone just orders fresh anyways.

Expiration date food markets with 50-75% off food should be opened up in every city run by the gov. This is how I want my tax money to be used.

Let anyone, not just the poor, who don't mind food that's not as fresh as those at supermarkets and convenience stores shop at them.

Any amount of food being wasted should be a crime in my opinion, esp with so many going hungry every day.

I almost never see soon-to-expire food selling for less than half the sticker price, even if there are only hours left before that date. Let stores recover something from it; even 80% off is better than throwing it away!

Also I'd like to see the public understand that 賞味期限 (the date by which the taste is guaranteed) is not the same thing as 消費期限 (the date by which something should be consumed), and that you can still eat things the day after the best-by *shōmikigen.*

More than half is repurposed into animal feed, so it's not as big a problem as many people think.

I think that if you order off the menu, the staff still just takes it off one of these plates that have gone around a few times.

Conveyor belt sushi restaurants are some of the worst offenders. Plates and plates going around which all get thrown away, because everyone just orders fresh anyways.

Shops, distributors, and producers always want to minimize waste, but some waste is inevitable. Farmers and supermarkets are probably far more efficient than I am in my garden. In-season foods from the garden are too plentiful and often go to waste.

Even with discounts on foods near sell-by dates, foods prepared and stocked sometimes don’t sell. Lots of fresh foods have very short shelf lives and may damage or spoil easily (looking at you, tomatoes!)

Shipping food across the country also means some level of waste. But if Hokkaido wants oranges in winter and the rest of Japan wants plentiful potatoes, onions, and carrots in the summer, shipping foods is 100% necessary.

Shops have to choose between maximizing access to food and minimizing waste. It’s a difficult balance. On an average day, a shop might sell 30 units of a food. On a high-demand day, they might sell 35 or more. On a low-demand day, they might only sell 20. How many units should the shop stock? If the goal is zero waste, stocking 20 results in severe shortages on most days, and the shop sells fewer and loses profits. Stocking 30 means some waste, some shortages. Maximizing access to food means higher levels of waste, which at some point eat into profits.

More than half is repurposed into animal feed, so it's not as big a problem as many people think.

Yep, people still eat the food, just as pork instead of as fresh produce.

What some call inefficient, I call flavor enhancement!

Where I came from, volunteers collect most eatable and usable items and drive it around to communities, apartment complex, and parks for distribution to who ever wants it Free of charge.

I was amazed at the number and diversity of people who were getting these items from the delivery trucks and how happy they were.