Why Do I End Up Throwing Out So Much Food?

Why Do I End Up Throwing Out So Much Food?

Refrigerators want to come to the rescue; ‘It makes me feel horribly guilty.’

By Ellen Byron in the Wall Street Journal

For Jason and Mindy Koschuk, Sunday night cleanup almost always involves throwing away spoiled fruit and vegetables.

“Sometimes it’s food that I’ve forgotten about, or maybe we went out to dinner when we should’ve eaten at home instead,” says Ms. Koschuk, a children’s services coordinator in Grand Island, N.Y. “It makes me feel horribly guilty.”

Bags of dried-up carrots, overripe avocados, ruined eggplants and “smooshy” bell peppers often end up in the Koschuks’ trash can despite ambitions to use them for healthy snacks or in new, interesting recipes, Ms. Koschuk says. “You have all these great plans when your eyes see all those colors at the grocery store or farmer’s market,” she says. “You say, ‘we’ll eat that,’ and then we don’t.”

Appliance and household-product makers are racing to make food last longer. Some have devised luxury refrigerators with NASA-inspired air-purification systems, complicated food containers and pricey vacuum sealers.

The lucrative prize they chase is a solution to consumers’ deep dislike of throwing away food. “It’s a guilt that doesn’t only have to do with money. It just feels wrong,” says Gaston Vaneri, vice president of marketing for Newell Rubbermaid Inc. ’s Rubbermaid consumer line, which includes food-storage containers. “Consumers have the feeling of not being competent. They had to throw the lettuce away because they didn’t see it, they forgot about it, or they just didn’t manage their food correctly.”

The problem is getting worse. Americans threw away approximately 36 million tons of food in 2012, according to the most recent data available from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. That’s up about 20% since 2000 and almost three times the amount thrown away in 1960.

“Some people are throwing away $1,000 or more worth of food a year,” says Paul Sikir, vice president of design engineering at Sub-Zero Group Inc., which makes refrigerators that can cost upwards of $16,000.

Sub-Zero calls its refrigerators “a food-preservation system” in marketing materials. They include air-purification capabilities based on technology developed by NASA which Sub-Zero purchased the rights to use. The system “scrubs” the air of ethylene, mold, viruses and bacteria every 20 minutes, which the company says will help food last longer, smell fresher and taste better.

Sub-Zero refrigerators also have separate cooling systems for the refrigerator and the freezer, a feature more high-end refrigerators now offer. In contrast, a more typical refrigerator exchanges air with the freezer, creating jolts of very cold and dry air that can speed food spoilage, Mr. Sikir says. “The key is to keep the temperature consistent and the humidity in the refrigerator as high as you can. That keeps fresh food fresher longer,” he says.

Food often goes bad in a refrigerator in a few days due to a buildup of ethylene gas, poor air flow and lack of humidity, experts say. While storing food at cold temperatures can slow the growth of bacteria, it doesn’t prevent it.

The desire for more fresh food means people are seeking larger spaces for refrigerated items and are less concerned about big freezers, says Zach Elkin, director of brand marketing for Thermador, a division of BSH Home Appliances. Thermador started highlighting several food-preservation features on its refrigerator models in recent years, including a “FlexTemp Drawer” that offers specific temperature controls for different foods, such as fish at 32 degrees Fahrenheit, meats and cheeses at 35 degrees and produce at 37 degrees.

Grocery stores like consumers’ preference for fresh food because it means they come back to shop more often, says Sherry Frey, senior vice president of Nielsen Perishables Group, a unit of the market-research firm. Packaged goods tend to be similar from one store to another, but selections of produce, baked goods and deli items can be a competitive point of differentiation.

“People say that when they choose their grocery store it’s based on the meat and produce departments,” Ms. Frey says.

Sales growth in the meat, produce, deli, bakery and seafood departments in recent years has steadily outpaced the packaged and frozen foods usually found in the center aisles of a grocery store, Ms. Frey says. Dollar sales of deli, meat and produce departments rose 7%, 6% and 5% respectively last year over the year before, for example, while frozen foods were flat, according to Nielsen.

The way consumers now use their refrigerators shows the shift, too, says Justin Reinke, director of refrigeration product marketing at Samsung Electronics America, a division of Samsung Electronics Co. On Samsung’s latest four-door refrigerator, users can change the temperature settings of the bottom-right section between a refrigerator and freezer. “About 80% of people are keeping it as a refrigerator,” he says. “That’s one of the reasons that French-door refrigerators in general took off so well—it gave easy access to fresh food right at eye level.”

Some companies are betting that consumers are so frustrated over spoiled food they will do an extra chore if it promises to keep food fresh. Whirlpool Corp. ’s KitchenAid line has a “Produce Preserver,” a filter that must be replaced every six months and promises to reduce odors and absorb ethylene, a gas produced by foods like apples and avocados that can speed up the ripening process. “It extends the life of your food by about 25%,” says Jason Mathew, Whirlpool’s product development director for refrigeration, North America.

OXO, owned by Helen of Troy Ltd. , last month introduced “GreenSaver,” a line of food containers that promise to help preserve fruits and vegetables. The lids include a carbon filter that absorbs ethylene and requires replacement every 90 days. A guide inside also tells consumers which foods need the lid’s sliding-door ventilation opened or closed, depending on their humidity needs. The clear, plastic box big enough to hold berries, for example, sells for $14.99. A four-pack of carbon filter refills costs $9.99.

Consumers are so frustrated by rotten food that they won’t mind taking extra steps to curb it, OXO says. “Consumers say it’s worth making a habit change and not just throw something in a plastic bag to sit at the bottom of the crisper,” says Lua O’Brien, an OXO product manager.

Advances in food preservation aren’t always an easy sell since it’s a capability that consumers can’t necessarily gauge, says Dan Goldstein, who leads marketing efforts for General Electric Co. ’s refrigerators, which offer separate cooling systems for the freezer and refrigerator as well as enhanced crisper and freezer-defrost capabilities. “The biggest challenge we have as an industry is that food-preservation is technology that takes place behind the walls of the refrigerator,” he says. “It’s a difficult thing to grasp and understand because you just can’t see it.”

Yet televising pieces of meat, fruits and vegetables get vacuum-sealed sells lots of products for FoodSaver, owned by Jarden Corp, the company says. The devices, which range from around $80 to about $450, seal food into airtight plastic bags and promise to keep food fresh up to five times longer. To demonstrate how the strength of the sealer’s vacuum, segments on infomercials and home-shopping network QVC show users suffocating marshmallows, crushing soda cans and even pushing a nail through a 2x4 piece of wood.

“When you are demonstrating the product you talk about having the air sucked out of the bag while keeping the freshness of the food in—it’s really what engages people,” says Lori Gonzalez, vice president and general manager of Jarden’s consumer solutions. “Food preservation becomes a lifestyle, and once you start you don’t stop.”