Fast Company has a story saying that a a new study conducted by sustainability nonprofit BSR and underwritten by meal kit company Blue Apron suggests that "62% less food is wasted at Blue Apron's food prep facility and by consumers than the same meals cooked with grocery store ingredients."
The reason: "Each meal comes with only the precise amount needed for each ingredient, whether it's a single carrot, three dates, or a tiny amount of flour. In theory, you'll eat all of it."
According to the story, "BSR surveyed 2,000 Blue Apron customers to find out how much they threw out in meals that week—maybe because they didn't like a particular ingredient, or they didn't eat a full meal. Again, they compared that to USDA food waste stats for the same ingredients. Cooks threw out 7.6% of the food in Blue Apron meals, and would throw out an estimated 23.9% to make the same meal otherwise."
The reason: "Each meal comes with only the precise amount needed for each ingredient, whether it's a single carrot, three dates, or a tiny amount of flour. In theory, you'll eat all of it."
According to the story, "BSR surveyed 2,000 Blue Apron customers to find out how much they threw out in meals that week—maybe because they didn't like a particular ingredient, or they didn't eat a full meal. Again, they compared that to USDA food waste stats for the same ingredients. Cooks threw out 7.6% of the food in Blue Apron meals, and would throw out an estimated 23.9% to make the same meal otherwise."
- KC's View:
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While the data is acknowledged to be imprecise (and we certainly have to consider the source), Blue Apron believes that it can make the end-to-end sustainability impact argument successfully, at least to the degree that it will be able to justify better the cost of its meal kits. I have to admit that I find it to be a persuasive argument; one of the my pet peeves (and it becomes a greater issue for me as I get older) is throwing out food that the people who live in my house have asked me to buy, but never ate.
