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Julio Razza

Professor Watson

English 1001

January 2019

Food Waste: Targets, Transparency and Innovation

Have you ever gone to take a quick glance into your fridge before a shopping trip to see

what you need, only to end up throwing out pounds of rotten fruit, veggies and meat that you

never ate? Odds are, you have. In fact, you’re not the only one, not by a long shot. Most people

are unaware the sheer scale of this serious global issue. “Every year a third of the world’s food is

wasted. In terms of weight, it adds up to around 1.3bn tonnes” (Lewis). That’s right, this

shocking data has come out and it is clearly a wide scale issue. Don’t fret just yet, there is a man,

Dave Lewis, who has done the research for us all, and is pushing us all to act. Lewis, group chief

executive at Tesco, is also the chairman of Champion 12.3. This group of private and public

sector leaders was formed with the vision of slashing global food waste per capita in half by the

year 2030. This goal and its reasons are laid out in his article “Curbing Food Waste Is Good for

Business, the Environment, and Society”. His thesis proclaims: “Even if the moral imperative

doesn’t move us, the clear business case for reducing food waste should persuade every CEO”

(Lewis). Champion 12.3’s theories of the tremendous scale of food waste and the potential

upsides to businesses, the environment and society are supported by Lewis’s spread out use of

ethos pathos, logos and ethos in his writing.

Lewis’s accreditations are never fully mentioned at all in his article. While the article

commentary clears this up, readers without the commentary would not know of Lewis’s past

experiences except for his involvement in Tesco. Even still, we can feel his use of ethos
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influenced on his article from his perspective. Lewis uses multiple angles of ethos to target the

audience including social and environmental issues brought upon us by such a high global food

waste. Imagine all the starving people worldwide that could potentially benefit from 1.3 billion

tons of saved food. His ideas are presented confidently with new research data from a company

that he is chairman of: Champions 12.3. He plays on the idea that while we all know and

understand that food waste is ethically bad, never have we had enough data to act. It’s a little

hard to believe that we couldn’t act until we had the raw data shoved in our faces. Now that we

do have that data available to us, from his point of view, it would be simply unethical to not do

anything. This includes the every day Joe, but more focuses on big businesses related to food

waste.

Lewis plays onto the pathos of readers by taking them on an emotional ride of

uncertainty, with most people simply accepting our food waste situation knowing that we could

improve our environment and society if we were to reduce waste, however knowing that the

monetary gain wouldn’t be there. This uncertainly is cleared by Lewis with information intended

to give confidence to the readers, knowing now that there is indeed monetary gain potential if we

reduce our waste. He uses terms like courage, attempting to give readers motivation in

understanding that this massive scale problem has the potential to be solved, should we all join in

and work together. This encouragement is strengthened in his last paragraph, when he shows that

he is leading the way with his company Tesco, becoming one of the world’s most efficient

retailers in terms of waste. He has shown that people can have the confidence to reduce waste,

and that it will improve society, the environment, and their company’s bottom line. While he

could have included more ethos topics in his article, his efficient use of them sends a clear

enough message to readers.

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Logically, Lewis’s argument has many valid points. His use of Logos is strong in his

informative article intended to inform and persuade people, mainly businesses, to reduce food

waste. In fact, this is the main idea of the entire article which he supports many times throughout.

In his thesis, he attempts to logically target executive level managers in companies. He knows

that even if the executives don’t care about the ethical, or emotional details, they will appeal to

the logical side of cold hard cash. With the application of food waste reduction based on

Champion 12.3’s analysis, there have been some incredible results for thousands of businesses.

“For every £1 invested in reducing food waste, half the business sites had at least a £14 return.”

(Lewis). He strengthens this with examples of his own company’s success, “In 2013, Tesco took

the step of publishing its UK food waste data. The numbers reveal that less than 1 per cent of our

food is wasted.” (Lewis). Being able to decrease their losses by reducing waste and giving other

companies success guidelines based on what his company has achieved.

Since 2013, Tesco has been paving the way for businesses everywhere to start reducing

food waste and to start acting. The time of innovation and action on food waste has arrived. And

Dave Lewis has given readers of all backgrounds, and specifically business leaders, the

information and knowledge to understand the current situation of global food waste and what to

do in the coming times. Overall his argument is a strong presentation in a short text. His use of

pathos was light; however, he makes up for this with strong logic and ethos that everyone can

relate with. The effectiveness of the article would most likely be quite high for anyone who reads

it, especially considering the ignorance to all the information stated in the article. We are likely

to see an emerging trend among businesses, because after all, the clear case for reducing food

waste is here, even if the moral or ethical imperative doesn’t move us.
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Works Cited

Lewis, Dave. "Curbing Food Waste Is Good for Business, the Environment, and Society."

Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection, Gale, 2019. Opposing Viewpoints in Context,

http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/VTCVUP682065159/OVIC?u=ucinc_main&sid=OVIC&xid

=877c0929. Accessed 16 Jan. 2019. Originally published as "Curbing food waste saves money,

as well as the planet," Telegraph, 6 Mar. 2017.