Next time you get a wedding invitation, don’t be surprised to see a pictorial representation urging you not to waste food.
Such a moral persuasion could become a reality if recommendations by a study conducted for the Ministry of Consumer Affairs are implemented. The Centre for Consumer Studies under Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA) has suggested steps such as pictorial messages asking people not to waste food and mandatory packaging of unused or unserved food in hotels and restaurants as solutions to stop wastage of food at social gatherings.
The report, Assessment of Wastage of Food and Ostentatious Behaviour During Social Gathering, however, does not suggest any legal control on the number of guests at a function. Such a rule was in force in 1960s and 1970s. There was also a cap on the number of dishes.
The Assam Guest Control Order, 1966, and the Mizoram Guest Control Order, 1972, capped the number of persons at wedding or funeral feasts at 100. Many states also executed similar orders then.
The first-of-its-kind analysis on the level and extent of food wastage in social gatherings commissioned by the consumer affairs ministry has found that 15-20 per cent of the food that is served in social gatherings is wasted, of which maximum wastage takes place in marriages, followed by seminars and conferences.
“Taking into account the population of the country and volume of social functions being organised, the wastage is on a higher side,” the study says.
Indians spend around Rs 3 lakh crore on weddings every year. If that much amount is spent this financial year also, it would mean 3.37 per cent of the country’s GDP, according to advance estimates, for 2011-12.
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Almost 87 per cent of the respondents in the study said that wastage is more in urban areas and less in rural areas.
The analyses was done on the basis of a five-city survey in Delhi, Gurgaon, Ghaziabad, Noida and Faridabad and is based on responses of around 1,000 caterers, hoteliers, wedding planners, waste management staff and public.
The maximum food wastage is at buffet system, while the least quantity of food is wasted when food is served by family members. “Almost 75 per cent of the respondents said that food wastage is high in the buffet system, which is a western method, and 44.1 per cent said there is no wastage in food that is cooked and served by the family members,” notes the report.
In the buffet system, guests can always help themselves to a second serving if they like anything in particular, but many don’t do this and fill their plates once and for all, it added.
The study has concluded that wastage is higher when the number of dishes served is more and wastage is the least when less number of dishes is served.
“The main course in a typical middle-class wedding or function comprises 10-12 vegetable dishes, different types of dal, pulao and breads, while in the upper strata of the society, the menu list goes up to 100-150 items,” the report states.
Among all the food served in social gatherings, vegetables, chapattis and rice are the most wasted.
“By taste and habit, Indians like eating hot food. If chapatti or roti is not hot, they will not eat it, hence wastage is more in such items,” the report says.
The most disturbing fact is that most of the wasted food is thrown in garbage bins making them unusable even for animals sometimes. In hotels and restaurants, the leftover food from plates is sold as animal feed for pigs and other animals at Rs 22 a kg.