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GENERAL ENGLISH · GENERAL ISSUES · UPPER-INTERMEDIATE (B2-C1)

FOOD
WASTE
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1 Warm up

Look at the images and answer the following questions.

sweets/cakes takeaway fruit and vegetable fish and meat

1. Look at the photographs. How much do you typically spend on those types of food for your home
and office each week?
2. Which of the foods in the photographs are you most likely to throw away? Why?
3. Why do you think that takeaway and restaurant portions are the size that they are?
4. Do you think businesses are responsible for food wastage? Why/why not?

2 Listening for specific information

Listen to the conversation between two people talking about food and answer the following questions.

1. What is the first speaker eating?

2. Who did the first speaker travel in China with?

3. Does the first speaker order food?

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3 Completing notes

Listen again and complete the notes.

1
Roughly of all the food produced for consumption is thrown away every year. This
2 3
is dollars’ worth of food, which could feed . It is the equivalent of
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the entire country of China, which is acres, being used to grow food which is then
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thrown away. In addition, the water required to grow this much food is equal to
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people using , per person, per day. There will not be this many people on the planet
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until around 2050, by which time we will need to have increased food production by . Currently,
around 700 million people go hungry. A lot of the waste is caused by high supermarket standards for
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appearance. For example, around of European fish is discarded for this reason.

In pairs, discuss the following questions.

1. Was there anything that surprised you about the statistics quoted in the conversation? Why/Why
not?
2. Where do you think most of the food waste comes from in your country? Explain your opinion.
3. In the conversation, one reason was given for food waste being so high. What do you think are
other reasons?
4. What could you do to reduce the amount of food that you personally waste?
5. What suggestions do you have to reduce food waste in your country?

4 Focus on vocabulary

Part A: Match the words to their definitions.

1. excess (n) a. more than is required

2. stability (n) b. to do something that shows what great respect you have for
someone or their achievements
3. mutually (adv.) c. official praise and rewards for an achievement

4. disposal (n) d. done or felt in equal amounts by two or more people

5. surplus (adj.) e. an unchanging state or situation

6. notify (v) f. to officially give a person some information

7. honour (v) g. the act of discarding something after it is no longer needed

or useful
8. recognition (n) h. an amount which is more than is required

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Part B: Now complete the following sentences with a different form of the word in brackets.

1. Sales and Marketing ordered twice as many as we need, so we’re going to be left with a
in the warehouse. (surplus)

2. I hadn’t seen him for two years. So with his suit and tie, and his full beard, he was completely
! (recognition)

3. Something’s wrong with my work phone. I’m not getting any more and I’ve missed
three voice messages. (notify)

4. Congratulations on the promotion! You should have more income now. Might be
able to afford a holiday! (disposal)

5. I’m not sure now is the right time to invest. The market is quite at the moment.
(stability)

6. Following the situation with the waitress, the CEO really had to do the thing and
resign. (honour)

7. I found out today that my manager and I have a friend, Desmond. She’s known
him since they were at university together apparently. (mutually)

8. I know he’s upset about the contract, but I thought his shouting was . Some people
in the office looked deeply uncomfortable. (excess)

Now in pairs, discuss the following questions.

1. What elements do you need in your life to feel a sense of stability?

2. Have you ever had to notify someone of some good news? What happened?
3. Have you ever received any official recognition? What was it for? What would you like to achieve
recognition for?
4. Who do you know who has been honoured for something they have done or achieved?
5. What systems do you have in your country for waste disposal? Is recycling an important part of
that system?
6. How much money do you think is an excess of money?

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5 Skimming for gist (optional exercise)

Read the article on page 5 and match the following titles to the paragraphs. You will not need two of
them.

1. Dealing with the difficulties

2. The woman behind it all

3. Setting up the website

4. Realising there is a problem

5. Finding investment

6. Matching excess to need

6 Skimming for details

Read the following sentences from the article on page 5 and write the number in the correct gap. You
will not need two of them.

1. Food charities, homeless shelters and soup kitchens can sign up with MEANS Database and state
their needs.

2. Our record time is two minutes and 37 seconds.

3. Of all of her achievements, this is the one which makes her the most proud.

4. She admits that her GPA would likely be better had she not been running the website at the same
time.

5. ‘I remember crying and being so angry,’ said Belding of the incident.

6. It was a particularly difficult time for everyone involved.

7. Belding was 14 when she first had the inspiration for the site.

8. That was taken and mixed with pork and beans as was apparently very popular with all who
enjoyed it.

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A MEANS to an end
Answering the problem of hunger

A. As a teen, Maria Rose Belding quickly learnt first-hand about the problem of food waste while working for a
church charity. They took in food donations and distributed them to local people in need. One day, they received
hundreds of boxes of macaroni and cheese. However, due to the lack of ability to use it and no real infrastructure
to communicate with other charities, the entire stock had to be thrown out after its use-by date had expired.
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‘There were people sitting in the parking lot, waiting to come get food. And they could see
me throwing away food in front of them.’

B. Fuelled by the frustration of this experience, Belding set up a website: MEANS Database - MEANS being an
acronym standing for Matching Excess and Need for Stability. It allows food businesses, such as restaurants and
caterers, to communicate directly with food charities and non-profit organisations which can distribute unwanted
food to those in need. This results in a mutually beneficial arrangement whereby the businesses do not need to
2
pay charges for waste disposal, and the hungry are fed. Then, when those in the food industry
have surplus supplies, they can go to the site, say what they have, where they are and by when the food needs to
be taken away. All of the charities within a certain radius are notified and they can claim the food.

C. The donations that MEANS Database has been able to find a home for are quite incredible. A five-star restaurant
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in Seattle once donated 50 pounds of squab, which is very similar to a baby pigeon. They’ve
managed to redistribute 11,000 pounds of green beans, 42,000 pounds of milk and 250 pounds of swedes. Belding
says, ‘We’ll find a home for it 95% of the time. The average amount of time it takes for food to be claimed is half
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an hour. ’ Since it was set up, MEANS Database has grown to cover 48 states in America, as
well as the District of Columbia. It works with around 3,000 partners to feed those in need.
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D. Now in her mid-twenties, she is the Chair of the Board for MEANS and has authored
numerous published articles on food security and poverty. She has been recognised and honoured by the
Obama White House in 2014 and 2016 with President’s Volunteer Service awards. In 2018, she was named
Glamour College Woman of the Year and Hero of the Year by CNN, the youngest woman ever to receive that
recognition. Throughout her college years at American University in Washington DC, she ran the business in-
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between attending classes for her Bachelor of Science degree. However, as she herself put it,
‘What makes it worth it, is knowing that we’re building something that matters a lot more than we do.

Sources: CNN Health by Kathleen Toner, esme.com, MEANS Database and BBC News by Ian Rose

Glossary
acronym – a word composed of the first letters of other words
squab – a type of baby pigeon
swede – a root vegetable
Bachelor of Science – a type of undergraduate degree, often abbreviated to B.S. There is also a Bachelor of
Arts, often abbreviated to B.A.

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7 Reading comprehension
Complete the following summary with one, two, or three words from the article.

1
Marie Rose Belding had of the problems with food waste while still a teen. While
helping at a local charity, she found herself throwing food away while hungry people watched. The
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to communicate with other charities and restaurants created a situation which had
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a real effect on her. She poured her with the situation into creating a website,
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MEANS Database, which connected charities to businesses that had food. It meant
that when caterers or restaurants had food they wanted to dispose of, they could log on to the website
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which would notify charities inside a particular of the business. According to Belding,
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of the food is matched with people in need. Since creating the website, Belding
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has had several pieces connecting poverty to published and received awards and
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recognition for her work. During her , she split her time between running the website
and attending classes and acknowledges she could have got a better mark had she not done that.
However, she points out that building something which matters a lot more than herself is what make
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the whole enterprise

8 Talking point
In pairs, discuss the following questions.

1. Did you find the article about Marie Rose Belding interesting? Why/why not?
2. Do you think the governments in countries around the world should be doing more to deal with
the problem of food waste? Why/why not?
3. Is this type of business something that could happen in your country? Why/why not?
4. Marie Rose Belding said, "What makes it worth it, is knowing that we’re building something that
matters a lot more than we do." Do you agree with this idea? Why/why not?

9 Extended activity/homework
Read the following question.

Food waste is always going to be a problem because richer countries have so much of it and do
not value it. If you can make money but still throw food away, then it will continue to happen.

To what extent do you agree with the above statement?

You should:

• Write at least 250 words

• Check your grammar, spelling and punctuation

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Transcripts

2. Listening for specific information

Business person 1: Mmmm! That burger looks delicious! I might order some take away too. I’m
exhausted.

Business person 2: Yeah, it’s really tasty and massive. And the chips are THE best.

Business person 1: What are you watching there?

Business person 2: This amazing documentary on food waste, have you seen it?

Business person 1: No, is it any good?

Business person 2: Scary! I’m blown away by the statistics. Did you know that, out of all the food
which is produced to eat, the world throws away about one third of it? Every
single year.

Business person 1: Seriously?

Business person 2: Yeah! We could feed three billion people with that food. And it’s worth one
trillion US dollars.

Business person 1: I can’t even wrap my head around how much food that is.

Business person 2: Maybe this will help. You’ve been to China, yes?

Business person 1: Yes. I did that trip from Shanghai to Beijing with my friends. Amazing.

Business person 2: So imagine the whole of China was just fields that grow crops.

Business person 1: That’s a lot of crops.

Business person 2: It is. It’s 2.5 billion acres. Now imagine we just throw away all the food that we
make with them.

Business person 1: That’s crazy!

Business person 2: But it’s not just that. It’s the whole food process. The water that is used to grow
the wasted food is the equivalent of 200 litres, per person, per day for 9 billion
people.

Business person 1: 9 billion? But there are only about 7 billion people on the Earth now, aren’t there?

Business person 2: Exactly! There won’t be 9 billion people on the planet until the middle of this
century, and by then we will need to be producing 70% more food than we do
now to feed everyone.

Business person 1: It doesn’t make sense at all. Especially when you consider all of the people who
are hungry in the world. I read that about 700 million people at the moment
don’t have enough food.

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Business person 2: I know! A lot of it, would you believe, is apparently to do with how it looks.
Between 40 and 60 per cent of the fish caught in Europe are just thrown away
because they’re not up to the standards of supermarkets.

Business person 1: That’s mad.

Business person 2: I know. It’s really depressing.

Business person 1: It is, but have you read about Maria Rose Belding?

Business person 2: No?

Business person 1: Read this article here; it’ll cheer you up. You should also give me the other half
of that burger. You’re clearly not going to finish it.

Business person 2: (laughs) True. It’s a deal.

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Key

1. Warm up

5 mins.
This introduces students to the idea of the topic and asks them to think about it from a personal perspective.

2. Listening for specific information

5 mins.
This allows students to listen to the conversation once before dealing with the main listening task. Higher-level
students may be able to tackle both listening tasks simultaneously.

1. Burger and chips.

2. Friends.
3. No, they share the second speaker’s meal because it’s so large.

3. Completing notes

5 mins.
Ask students to note down the statistics mentioned in the recording. You may want to ask students to compare
answers ahead of discussing them with the class.

1. one-third 2. one trillion 3. 3 billion people 4. 2.5 billion

5. 9 billion 6. 200 litres 7. 70% 8. 40-60%
5 min.
This gives students an opportunity to discuss what they heard. You may want to extend the activity by asking
students to find out statistics related to their own country or continent.

4. Focus on vocabulary

Part A
5 mins.
Ensure students can correctly pronounce the target vocabulary. Ask them to complete the task unaided in the
first instance, but check using a reference if needed later.

1. → h.
2. → e.
3. → d.
4. → g.
5. → a.
6. → f.
7. → b.
8. → c.
Part B
10 mins.

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You may want to ask students to note down alternative forms of the target vocabulary ahead of completing this
task. Allow students to use a reference as needed for this. When they have completed it, ask them to discuss the
questions to give them practice with using the target vocabulary.

1. surplus 2. unrecognisable 3. notifications 4. disposable

5. unstable 6. honourable 7. mutual 8. excessive

5. Skimming for gist (optional exercise)

5 mins.
This allows students to practise skimming for gist. Set a strict time limit to encourage skimming.

1. not used
2. paragraph D
3. paragraph B
4. paragraph A
5. not used
6. paragraph C

6. Skimming for details

5 mins.
This gives students practice in skimming and scanning to match the missing information to the gaps. Set a strict
time limit to encourage them to use these skills rather than reading for detail.

1. 2
2. 4
3. not used
4. 6
5. 1
6. not used
7. 5
8. 3

7. Reading comprehension

10 mins.
Ask students to read in more detail and complete the summary. Remind them that the missing words can be one,
two or three words from the article.

1. first-hand experience 2. lack of ability

3. frustration 4. unwanted/surplus/excess
5. radius 6. 95%
7. food security 8. college years
9. worth it

8. Talking point

10 mins.
Ask students to discuss the questions in pairs or small groups. Circulate and help as needed.

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9. Extended activity/homework

40 mins +.
Ask students to plan, write and edit their essays. You may want to do this as a class exercise in pairs or small groups
as long as everyone has a defined role. This will help lower-level students to benefit from higher-level ones.

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