Quibans 110: American eating habits

From the Daily Telegraph

My British mind boggles at American eating habits

Outside a convenience store in Kansas, I got talking to a man eating a “Midwest breakfast”: egg and bacon pizza, accompanied by a 36-ounce soda (containing 120g of sugar) and a pint of “americano”.

According to a 2023 study conducted by the Oxford University information platform, Our World in Data, “the average American buys 3,868 calories a day”. But the significant take-away here (pun intended) is that not all the food that gets bought actually gets eaten. 

According to Feeding America, a nationwide network of foodbanks, around 38 per cent of the country’s food gets wasted every year. That’s 80 million tonnes, or 145 billion meals, valued at a staggering $444 billion.

Additional information.  This could be given to students, or they could be asked to search for it (or could just be told that they don’t have enough information to answer a couple of the questions and will need to work out what additional info they need).

·         According to the NHS website, “As a guide: an average man needs 2,500kcal a day, an average woman needs 2,000kcal a day”.

·         A sugar cube weighs about 4g, and contains 16 calories.

·         The population of the USA is 337 million.

 

Some possible questions:

1)      How many calories are wasted per person per day on average?

2)      How many tonnes of food is bought every year?

3)      How many meals are eaten per year in the USA?  How many is that per person per day?

4)      What is the weight of one meal?

5)      How much does a meal cost, on average?

6)      What percentage of additional calories above the recommended amount are consumed by the average American?

7)      What percentage of the daily calories for a man are in the “36-ounce soda”?

 

Answers:

1)      How many calories are wasted per person per day on average?

38% is wasted, so if 3,868 calories are bought per person then we can find 38% of that, which is 1470 calories.

2)      How many tonnes of food is bought every year?

80 million tonnes is 38%, so we need to divide by 0.38 to give 210.5 tonnes (more appropriately rounded to 210 tonnes?)

3)      How many meals are eaten per year in the USA?  How many is that per person per day?

145 billion divided by 0.38 = 381.6 billion.  Divide by 365 and then divide by 337 million, to get 3.1 per person per day.  This suggests that children are included in the figures.

4)      What is the weight of one meal?

80 million tonnes is 80 billion kg. 80 billion kg divided by 145 billion meals gives 0.551724 kg per meal, which is about 550g.

5)      How much does a meal cost, on average?

444 billion dollars divided by 145 billion meals = $3.06 on average.  [Why is it OK for us to use the figures in the article to work out the answers to Q4 and Q5, rather than needing to find the total cost for all of the food?  Both versions work!]

6)      What percentage of additional calories above the recommended amount are consumed by the average American?

38% of the calories bought are wasted, so that leaves 2398.16 (call it 2400 calories) being consumed per person.  If the population were half men and half women then the recommended daily amount would be 2250 (the average of 2000 and 2500), but the inclusion of children would affect that figure.  The average excess is at least 2400 – 2250 = 150.  Then divide by 2250, to give 7%.

7)      What percentage of the daily calories for a man are in the “36-ounce soda”?

120 g of sugar in the fizzy drink, which is 120/4 = 30 sugar cubes!  16 calories in each cube gives 480 calories.  480/2500 = 19.2%

Sources: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/comment/my-british-mind-boggles-at-american-eating-habits/

https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/healthy-weight/managing-your-weight/understanding-calories/

Quibans 109: Will supermarket sandwich prices really jump?

From the Daily Telegraph

Supermarket sandwich prices to jump

Sainsbury's and M&S supplier warns bigger wage bill will drive up costs

Supermarket sandwiches are to become more expensive as a looming rise in minimum wage puts up the cost of making them.

Greencore, the UK’s biggest sandwich maker, said on Thursday it would need to increase its prices when the National Living Wage increases by £1 an hour in April.

The company produces 779 million sandwiches a year and supplies most of the major supermarkets, including Sainsbury’s, Marks & Spencer and Co-op.

Greencore chief executive Dalton Philips said: “We’re hugely supportive [of wages rising], because if you can get wages moving again, that’s going to ultimately put more money in people’s pockets. But the reality is, on our wage bill, it is a material increase.”

The National Living Wage will rise to £11.44 from April in the biggest cash increase since the minimum wage was created in 1998. Mr Philips said the increase will add around £30m to Greencore’s costs.

He said: “Obviously you do everything you can to mitigate it by operational efficiencies and all the good work that all companies try. But at the end of the day, it’s £30m, and you can’t mitigate it all. And some of that does seep into price rises.”

Greencore employs around 13,600 people across 16 factories in the UK. As well as making hundreds of millions of sandwiches, it makes around 25 million packs of sushi and 132 million chilled ready meals every year.

Supermarkets ultimately set the price of the goods they sell. However, a rise in what Greencore charges may well be passed on to shoppers.

The likely increase threatens to reverse the recent slide in food inflation. Grocery inflation dropped from 7.7pc to 6.7pc last month, according to the British Retail Consortium.

Industry bosses have warned that they face significant increases in costs in the months ahead that threaten to push up prices. As well as the rise in minimum wage, business rates are also set to climb and new border checks will add to costs.

Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the BRC, said earlier this month: “Government should think twice before imposing new costs on retail businesses that would not only hold back vital investment in local communities, but also push up prices for struggling households.”

Mr Philips said despite the cost-of-living crisis, shoppers were increasingly opting for pricier, premium sandwiches.