Despite frequent reports of rising demand for handouts at food banks, Hong Kong's four supermarket chains are throwing out 29 tonnes of edible food every day, according to a study by a local green group.
The discarded food was enough to feed 48,000 three-person families, said one food bank manager.
'These supermarket chains have the ability and the responsibility to donate and recycle food waste,' said Michelle Au Wing-tsz, the deputy environmental manager of Friends of the Earth. She said the four companies the group investigated - ParknShop, Wellcome, CR Vanguard and Jusco - held a 53 per cent share of Hong Kong's retail sector.
Au's team visited refuse collection points for five outlets of the four chains from March to May. Each store disposed of an average of 135kg of food a day and one-third of the waste - 45kg - had not passed its expiry dates.
Given that the chains had 650 outlets in Hong Kong, the group estimated that the total amount of food being discarded daily was about 87 tonnes, with 29 tonnes of it still edible.
Of the food that had been dumped, 47 per cent was vegetables, some still fresh and with its packaging intact, Au said. Fresh fruit was also found and loaves of bread that were still five days away from their sell-by date.