Food waste is a massive issue – and it’s getting bigger as populations grow and the climate crisis impacts how reliably we can grow food. But it’s not as simple as pointing the blame at any single sector, because as our world becomes more interconnected, so does our food supply chain.
So, how is globalization impacting our food system and creating so much waste?
Here’s our food system at a glance, including how food waste impacts our environment, livelihoods and bellies, and how we can fix it.
Food that is never consumed is categorized as food loss or food waste.
Food loss refers to food spoiled during harvest, eaten by pests, or otherwise unfit for human consumption. Food loss is generally a greater issue in lower-income countries.
Food waste refers to any food that could have been eaten but was tossed in the garbage or not accepted by grocers or restaurants. This occurs more in higher-income countries.
For simplicity, we’ll refer to all food loss and waste (FLW) as food waste from here on.
Food waste begins at the source of food itself – the land. According to the World Resources Institute (WRI), 24 percent of all food waste occurs during production. These losses accumulate due to poor harvesting equipment, unprecedented weather spoiling crops, and pests, among many other environmental issues.
At the production level, food waste is notably highest in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia, where at least a third of total food waste occurs before food ever leaves the farm. However, the Global North also sees 17 to 23 percent of its total food waste at this stage.
Storing food might sound like a simple part of the supply chain. Think again – 24 percent of global food waste happens during handling and storage.
When farmers and producers need to temporarily store harvested goods on site but lack adequate cooling or drying facilities, food could get moldy, bacteria-ridden, or exposed to pests before they even make it to retailers.
Many countries in the Global South are also located in hot climates, adding to the severity of waste at this stage as bacteria and mold can grow more quickly.
What’s more, poor road conditions in rural areas can make it more challenging to get food to market quickly, resulting in even higher rates of food waste.
Once food has been collected from producers, it often goes to a processing plant for packaging or to be made into more complex goods. Poor processing methods, accidental spillages and mis-sorting can all lead to food waste. Improperly dehydrating nuts, for example, can lead to bacteria growth and therefore wastage.
Bread making, trail mix assembly, packing milk into cartons – you name it. The spillages or mishaps at this stage account for a smaller but still significant percentage of food waste across all regions.
Distributing food is as much about coordinating with retailers as it is about the trucks, trains, ships and planes transporting the products. Private retailers and governments alike have standards for the foods they will accept and not all of these have to do with the edibility of the food.
In the Global North, standards for visually appealing produce have led to a lot of ‘ugly’ fruit not making it to shelves. For instance, in the U.K., an estimated 25 percent of apples and 20 percent of onions never make it to households due to their funky appearance.
However, retailers in affluent countries aren’t only selective; they also often stock goods based on an ‘appearance of abundance.’ In short, buyers are more eager to pick goods from the fullest shelves. To keep up with this demand, retailers may overstock goods, knowing that this will boost sales – albeit resulting in leftover food that expires before it’s sold.
This need for abundance has a ripple effect across the food supply chain, putting pressure on farmers to grow more than they might reasonably sell.
After all this, food finally makes it to the consumer, where 35 percent of global food waste and loss occurs. In the EU and North America, each person wastes 95 to 115 kg of food annually, compared to 6 to 11 kg per person per year in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia.
So, how come affluent countries waste so much at the consumer level?
Consumers in countries like the U.S. tend to buy in bulk, shopping less frequently, and therefore see more food rot in the back of refrigerators.
Consumption patterns are also dictated in part by ‘sell by’ and ‘best before’ dates, which may be set arbitrarily. Without proper regulation, these dates don’t always reflect food safety, meaning grocers and shoppers alike trash goods while they are still healthy to consume.
Food waste begins at the source of food itself – the land. According to the World Resources Institute (WRI), 24 percent of all food waste occurs during production. These losses accumulate due to poor harvesting equipment, unprecedented weather spoiling crops, and pests, among many other environmental issues.
At the production level, food waste is notably highest in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia, where at least a third of total food waste occurs before food ever leaves the farm. However, the Global North also sees 17 to 23 percent of its total food waste at this stage.
Storing food might sound like a simple part of the supply chain. Think again – 24 percent of global food waste happens during handling and storage.
When farmers and producers need to temporarily store harvested goods on site but lack adequate cooling or drying facilities, food could get moldy, bacteria-ridden, or exposed to pests before they even make it to retailers.
Many countries in the Global South are also located in hot climates, adding to the severity of waste at this stage as bacteria and mold can grow more quickly.
What’s more, poor road conditions in rural areas can make it more challenging to get food to market quickly, resulting in even higher rates of food waste.
Once food has been collected from producers, it often goes to a processing plant for packaging or to be made into more complex goods. Poor processing methods, accidental spillages and mis-sorting can all lead to food waste. Improperly dehydrating nuts, for example, can lead to bacteria growth and therefore wastage.
Bread making, trail mix assembly, packing milk into cartons – you name it. The spillages or mishaps at this stage account for a smaller but still significant percentage of food waste across all regions.
Distributing food is as much about coordinating with retailers as it is about the trucks, trains, ships and planes transporting the products. Private retailers and governments alike have standards for the foods they will accept and not all of these have to do with the edibility of the food.
In the Global North, standards for visually appealing produce have led to a lot of ‘ugly’ fruit not making it to shelves. For instance, in the U.K., an estimated 25 percent of apples and 20 percent of onions never make it to households due to their funky appearance.
However, retailers in affluent countries aren’t only selective; they also often stock goods based on an ‘appearance of abundance.’ In short, buyers are more eager to pick goods from the fullest shelves. To keep up with this demand, retailers may overstock goods, knowing that this will boost sales – albeit resulting in leftover food that expires before it’s sold.
This need for abundance has a ripple effect across the food supply chain, putting pressure on farmers to grow more than they might reasonably sell.
After all this, food finally makes it to the consumer, where 35 percent of global food waste and loss occurs. In the EU and North America, each person wastes 95 to 115 kg of food annually, compared to 6 to 11 kg per person per year in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia.
So, how come affluent countries waste so much at the consumer level?
Consumers in countries like the U.S. tend to buy in bulk, shopping less frequently, and therefore see more food rot in the back of refrigerators.
Consumption patterns are also dictated in part by ‘sell by’ and ‘best before’ dates, which may be set arbitrarily. Without proper regulation, these dates don’t always reflect food safety, meaning grocers and shoppers alike trash goods while they are still healthy to consume.
Food waste looks different depending on the economy, environment, population and urbanization of an area. However, some trends point to underlying issues with our global food system at large.
Affluent countries in North America, Europe, Oceania and East Asia are responsible for 56 percent of food waste, despite accounting for only 17 percent of the world’s population.
Moreover, food waste in these countries tends to happen at the consumer level, primarily as a result of wasteful consumption habits, such as shopping less frequently and buying produce out of season.
Meanwhile, in less affluent countries, food waste generally occurs at the early stages of the food supply chain, including production, handling and storage, mainly due to a lack of tools and infrastructure.
While about 1 billion meals daily are wasted, more than 700 million people are undernourished.
Food waste and food insecurity are deeply intertwined issues. Food that’s wasted represents a huge waste of resources that could have otherwise been used to feed people experiencing hunger.
Land, labor and immense amounts of water are critical resources lost on food that is never consumed. In fact, food waste accounts for over 170 billion cubic meters of water use annually – almost a quarter of all water used for agriculture.
If we could totally eliminate food waste, there would be sufficient resources to feed 2 billion hungry people.
Food transport accounts for 6 percent of all global greenhouse gas emissions, while food production and land use account for another 24 percent. And yet, much of what we ship around the world is destined for the garbage.
These emissions only include wasted efforts to grow and transport food that is never eaten. Food itself emits greenhouse gases when tossed into landfills, making up 8 to 10 percent of global emissions.
We all know about carbon dioxide – the nasty byproduct that spews from car exhaust pipes and chugs out of factories burning fossil fuels.
But there’s another menacing gas that plumes off of rotting food: methane.
According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), food waste in the U.S. produces the same amount of emissions as 50 million gasoline-powered passenger vehicles. But how?
When food is tossed into a landfill, it’s squashed among the trash. Without air circulation, it decomposes anaerobically (without oxygen), which generates methane – a greenhouse gas 34 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
Although methane only stays in the atmosphere for a span of decades, whereas carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide last for centuries, it still has a strong impact on global temperatures, contributing 20 percent of the greenhouse effect.
One solution is to compost food waste. This allows for sufficient air and other organic materials to mix with food scraps, resulting in aerobic decomposition (with oxygen), which produces very little methane.
We may be some way off solving food waste at a global scale, but local grassroots initiatives are doing their bit to make a difference.
In Rwanda, the Dufatanye Organization, also the GLFx Nyanza chapter, is leading its community to reduce and repurpose food waste.
One of their most innovative solutions is to feed their food waste to black soldier flies, which consume the waste and turn it into a nutrient-rich compound, which they then use to feed poultry and fish. This not only reduces food waste from rotting in landfills but also reduces the cost of buying animal feed.
In Portugal, Fruta Feia (‘ugly fruit’) buys ‘impaired’ fruit and sells it directly to consumers. They’re saving 23 tons of fruits and vegetables from being wasted every week – and similar initiatives are popping up around the world.
Developers in Japan have created the Tabete app to connect users with local restaurants, cafes and supermarkets that have meals needing ‘rescuing.’ It allows businesses to advertise meals that need to be eaten that day, which users can pick up at sharply reduced prices.
Too Good To Go is a similar app used across Europe and North America.
Our global food supply chain is broken. How do we fix it? We need solutions that target both consumer behavior and policy change.
Here’s how a system for a food recovery hierarchy can help us reduce our food waste. With the most crucial solutions presented at the top of the inverted pyramid, the EPA advocates reducing surplus production as the primary way to reduce waste.
While these solutions offer a great framework for change, they primarily target individuals and small-scale actors. So, how can we improve education about sustainable consumption habits, market the positives of eating ‘ugly fruits’ and implement new policies and legislation to keep food out of landfills?
Manfred Lenzen, a professor of sustainability research at the University of Sydney, says consumers must change their attitudes to curb food waste emissions.
“One example is the habit of consumers in affluent countries demanding unseasonal foods year-round, which need to be transported from elsewhere,” said Lenzen in a piece published by the University of Sydney.
“Eating local seasonal alternatives, as we have throughout most of the history of our species, will help provide a healthy planet for future generations.”
Eating local is an eco-conscious trend advertised as reducing waste and curbing emissions from transportation. But is it enough?
While it does have a great impact on reducing emissions, it doesn’t work as a catch-all call to end food waste. Eating locally doesn’t change wasteful consumption habits in general – not to mention food distribution makes up only 12 percent of global food waste.
If we want to eliminate food waste and end hunger, we must first and foremost change our consumption habits.
In Global North countries, that could include smaller and more frequent grocery hauls, reducing portion sizes in restaurants and enacting ‘waste less’ campaigns.
But for large-scale change, we need to find solutions at every level of our food supply chain.
As AI becomes more powerful and refined, some companies are developing dynamic pricing at grocery stores to lower prices for goods that will expire sooner.
Digitalized supply chains are yet another innovation that can reduce food waste by streamlining the pickup, transportation and delivery of foods, reducing wait times between transport modes and thus reducing the risk of food spoiling or bruising.
Investors and governments can also partner with producers to share new resources and farming technologies to reduce food waste.
Changing consumer attitudes away from demanding perpetual abundance. Implementing new technologies to streamline transportation. Reducing production surpluses. These are just a few of the many ways to waste less.
The climate crisis, local economies, global hunger and food waste are all interconnected. So must be the solutions.
Text by Ava Eucker
Illustrations and design by Inês Mateus
Produced by Eden Flaherty
