Photo/Illutration Main dining halls at the Tokyo Olympic Athletes’ Village in Tokyo’s Chuo Ward (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Around 175 tons of food prepared for athletes and 300,000 bento boxes for volunteers and staff members were tossed out as trash during the Tokyo Summer Games, the Board of Audit said.

A number of factors contributed to the waste, including disruptions and delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and scandals at the run up to the sports extravaganza.

However, a man in his 30s who worked as an Olympic volunteer pointed to mismanagement.

“I think the excess of foodstuffs was a fact,” he said. “But it should surprise no one, considering the operation.”

The 2020 Tokyo Olympics, held in 2021, welcomed about 11,400 people from 205 countries and regions. About 4,400 athletes participating from 161 countries and regions entered the Japanese capital for the subsequent Paralympics.

About 90,000 people worked as volunteers for the Summer Games.

Up to 1,207 tons of food ingredients were used to prepare about 870,000 meals for athletes and staff at the Athletes’ Village, according to the board’s report submitted to the Diet on Dec. 21.

The Tokyo Olympic organizing committee signed contracts with operators to provide meals and beverages there and paid 7.1 billion yen ($53.9 million) until fiscal 2021, the board said.

To meet requests from the International Olympic Committee, the operators made about 700 kinds of dishes available for each meal at the main dining halls to cater to diverse dietary habits and religious practices.

Still, about 175 tons of food untouched by athletes went to waste, the board said.

The organizing committee also arranged to have about 1.6 million bento available for volunteers and staff during the Olympics.

About 300,000 of them were thrown out.

The food-waste problem was particularly noticeable during the Opening Ceremony, when operators discarded 4,000 of the 10,000 meals prepared.

The organizing committee told the Board of Audit that it typically placed orders for bento three days before distributing them to volunteers and staff.

However, a key member of the ceremony resigned at the last minute after his previous offensive remarks became known.

The ceremony and staffing levels were changed, and it was too late to adjust the bento order, the committee told the board.

The volunteer in his 30s said staff tried to reduce the waste.

“But there was going to be extra bento anyway, so we were told that we could each take two of them,” he said.

The agricultural ministry hoped that Olympic athletes from around the world would recognize the appeal of Japanese food and ingredients, and help to promote them internationally.

In 2021, the ministry gave a 19-million-yen contract to business operators “to spread the charms” of Japanese food by providing Japanese ingredients at the Athletes’ Village.

The ministry also made arrangements to include place-of-origin labels for all meals provided at the village.

But the board could not find any sign that these labels were used at the main dining halls.

It said the organizing committee explained that displaying accurate labels was impossible because so many ingredients from different places were served.

In November 2021, months after the Olympics and Paralympics ended, the organizing committee listed the origins of food ingredients used at the Games on the Japanese-language website of a panel of related ministries and agencies.

“In that situation, it was impossible to spread information about the charms of Japanese food ingredients,” the board said.

(This article was written by Takaoki Yamamoto and Yusuke Saito.)

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