I had not previously considered that frozen food reduces waste. If the food doesn’t spoil, can that offset the cost (also emissions) of shipping it across the country while frozen? There is some math to be done here, but there is also a PhD to be had on that math.
Food waste is a big problem and big money. I’ve seen a few concepts to solve this but it’s tough to build a commercial case behind any of them. Can you gather energy from composting? Maybe. But why would grocery stores care? As long as they are optimizing what is on their shelves, they don’t care if you throw it away later.
About one-third of the food produced and packaged for human consumption is lost or wasted, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. That equals 1.3 billion tons a year, worth nearly $680 billion.
Link to NYTimes article
From 8 to 10 percent of greenhouse gas emissions are related to food lost during harvest and production or wasted by consumers
Same NYTimes article