According to the Food Waste Index Report 2024, households across the globe wasted over one billion meals a day in 2022.
About Food Waste Index Report 2024:
It a study jointly authored by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Programme), a U.K.-based non-profit.
It tracks the global and national generation of food and inedible parts wasted at the retail and consumer (household and food service) levels.
Highlights of the report:
The report defines “food waste” as “food and the associated inedible parts removed from the human food supply chain”.
‘‘Food loss” is defined as “all the crop and livestock human-edible commodity quantities that, directly or indirectly, completely exit the post-harvest/slaughter production/supply chain up to, and excluding, the retail level”.
It noted that in 2022, there were 1.05 billion tonnes of food waste generated (including inedible parts), amounting to 132 kilograms per capita and almost one-fifth of all food available to consumers.
Many low- and middle-income countries continue to lack adequate systems for tracking progress to meet Sustainable Development Goal 12.3 of halving food waste by 2030.
At present, only four G-20 countries (Australia, Japan, U.K., U.S.) and the European Union have food waste estimates suitable for tracking progress.
Hotter countries appear to generate more food waste per capita in households, potentially due to higher consumption of fresh foods with substantial inedible parts and a lack of robust cold chains.
As compared to urban areas, rural ones generally wasted less food, due to “greater diversion of food scraps to pets, livestock and home composting”.
As of 2022, only 21 countries had included food loss and/or waste reduction in their climate plans or Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).
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