Airline food waste under fire in new campaign tackling the issue

AIRLINE meals can be questionable when it comes to taste and appeal, but there is one thing that people never eat and it is causing a big problem.

OzHarvest has been critical of airline food waste. Single-use plastic cups are also bad for the environment. Picture: Istock

SETTLING into a flight, it’s easy to be tempted by the airline’s menu and tasty snacks on offer.

But sometimes you’re also handed things you don’t even like or want, only for them to sit on the tray table for an hour until the cabin crew come back to collect them.

When it comes to packet biscuits or dry snacks, there’s no need to feel guilty because these can be “rescued” and given to hungry people in need in the community.

Yoghurt and other cold items, on the other hand, don’t fare as well.

In OzHarvest’s Food Fighter documentary released this week, the food rescue charity highlights the waste problem with airline food.

Founder Ronni Kahn is frustrated Qantas still cannot rescue unused yoghurt tubs because of cold storage regulations.

Australia produces a whopping $20 billion worth of food waste each year, or 5.3 million tonnes that end up in landfill.

OzHarvest’s average monthly collections from Virgin and Qantas range between 6-8000kg or 18,000 meals.

They collect nationally from Virgin, Qantas and Gate Gourmet, with food saved from domestic flights including pre-packaged sandwiches, wraps, muffins, muesli bars, snacks and juices. Often these items are great for schools.

Yoghurt is the worst culprit for airline food waste.

Qantas economy passenger Gabrielle Jervis enjoying a meal on board an A330. Picture: Anson Smart, Brent Winstone

They can’t collect yoghurts or dairy from international flights yet due to quarantine regulations.

Virgin offers a kind of yoghurt that doesn’t have to be kept in the fridge and therefore has a longer best-before-date and can be reused.

A Virgin Australia spokeswoman said it was proud to be a partner with OzHarvest to ensure surplus food from its aircraft is delivered to community groups in need.

“Under our partnership with OzHarvest, we recently reached the milestone of providing one million meals to children in need around Australia and we work hard to ensure that surplus food is passed on with care every single day,” she said.

Since Virgin Australia established its partnership with OzHarvest in 2015, it has donated about 340,000kg of food.

OzHarvest collects unused food from eight major ports within Virgin Australia’s domestic network.

A Qantas spokesman said because the yoghurt was served within a certain temperature range, the time it was out of cold storage or on the cart was too long.

“There’s a risk it could go off or spoil,” he said.

He said due to strict quarantine and biosecurity laws, there were no plans to rescue food from international flights because they couldn’t, with food supplied out of the port they leave from overseas.

In the documentary, Ms Kahn attempts to stress that due to changes in the public liability act around donating to food charities, the donor isn’t liable for what happens.