Taste the Waste

No visit to the supermarket will ever be the same.

Each year, 90 million tons of food are thrown away in the European Union alone. If loaded onto trucks, the convoy of that food waste would span the equator. After making an illogical trek halfway around the world, a staggering percentage of crops grown by farmers in impoverished countries end up in the garbage once they reach the European and North American markets. An entire pallet of oranges could wind up in the landfill if just one shows mold. German director Valentin Thurn finds no shortage of these shocking facts -- and plenty of appalling footage of heaping dumpsters -- as he travels the globe to expose a reality we often choose to ignore.

Through far-reaching visits with supermarket managers, cooks, farmers, wholesale market inspectors, food-bank workers, welfare recipients and bureaucrats, Thurn discovers a truth that will shame those whose mothers taught them always to clean their plates: We're all to blame. Every time we pick a pristine apple over a bruised one or scan the dairy case for the latest expiration dates, we exert a huge influence over the food cycle. But, ultimately, Taste the Waste is less about pointing fingers and more about finding solutions. From Austrian dumpster divers who source nearly all of their food from the trash, to a baker in France who turns his unsold bread into fuel, to young people operating rooftop farms in New York City, the filmmakers find plenty of regular folks making a difference.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Abu Dhabi Film Festival
• Taste the Waste
• Valentin Thurn
• Schnittstelle Koeln
• Pluramon
• european households
• wastage of food
• food wastage documentary