Imagine if you had to throw away one third of the food you bought. Straight out of your shopping bag and into the rubbish bin as soon as you got home. Despite how absurd this might sound, that was the reality painted by a 2011 FAO report that estimated that one third of food produced for human consumption globally is wasted, amounting to 1.3 billion tonnes per year. In 2015, this shocking statistic informed Goal 12 of the Sustainable Development Goals which aims to ensure sustainable consumption and production patters. The UN set an ambitious target to halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses by 2030. The target marked the first step in accurately scoping the amount of food lost and wasted at all stages of the supply chain with a view to monitor the impacts of food waste and progress achieved in reducing it.
Today, UNEP estimates that 1.05 billion tonnes of food were wasted in the household, food service and retail sectors alone in 2022 as per the UNEP Food Waste Index Report 2024. Since the publishing of the first Food Waste index in 2021, the amount of waste generated in these three sectors alone has increased by 13% even though this increase does not represent a real increase in food waste per capita. When measured against the 5.5 billion tonnes of food available in 2020, it is estimated that as much as 19% of food that reaches the consumption stage goes to waste. This means that up to 132 kilograms of food are wasted per person every year, with the highest rate being at the household level.
However, food waste does not begin at the consumer level. In 2021, WWF-UK reported that 1.2 billion tonnes of food are wasted on farms globally every year, equivalent to the weight of 10 million blue whales. Shockingly, 15.3% of food produced globally that is destined for human consumption goes to waste even before it leaves the farm. Worse still, 20-25% of global food production is lost en-route betwen the farm gate and the retail stage. Considering that these figures are just estimates, with data sets concentrated among high-income countries, and the majority of these being from the household level, it becomes evident that the full scale of the food waste problem across the whole supply chain is difficult to understand.
Food loss v Food waste
It is a widely accepted reality that food goes to waste at all levels of the food supply chain, from agricultural production, through transportation, processing and retail, down to final household consumption. Due to the common causes of food waste at different stages of the supply chain, food waste is categorised either as food loss or food waste depending on whether it happens before or after the retail stage.
Food loss, therefore, refers to the food that directly or indirectly completely exits the human food supply chain and do not re-enter in any other utilization in the stages leading up to the consumption of food. This includes losses at the post-harvest or post-slaughter stage, storage, transport and processing, up to and excluding the retail level. In this part of the supply chain, losses are considered to be caused by unintentional factors such as natural disasters and weather events, poor infrastructure, or market conditions that directly or indirectly prevent food from getting to consumers.
On the other hand, food waste refers to the food that leaves the human food supply chain at the manufacturing, retail, food service sectors and the household level. At this lower level of the food supply chain, food waste is considered to be as a result of retailers’ and consumers’ behaviours through their negligence or conscious decisions to discard food. In both definitions, food leaving the human supply chain means food ending up in destinations other than human consumption such as landfill, controlled combustion, sewer, litter/discards/refuse co/anaerobic digestion, compost/aerobic digestion, or land application.
It’s Complicated
Despite the two definitions, there is still no standard methodology that has been agreed upon to quantify food loss and waste. Between the two UN bodies responsible for maintaining global statistics on food waste, there is a divergence of the scope and definition of food loss and waste. The FAO and UNEP are the custodians of the Food Loss Index and Food Waste Index respectively but each scopes the food waste problem differently which calls into question the global food waste estimates they have so far provided.
For the purposes of the Food Waste Index, UNEP uses a broad scope of food waste. In this case, UNEP simply considers both edible and inedible parts of food originally intended for human consumption as food waste if they do not end up being consumed by humans. This broad scope is supported on the grounds that what considered ‘edible and ‘non-edible’ varies due to cultural preferences, degree of processing and personal preferences. For instance, chicken feet are a delicacy in some parts of the world, whereas apple skins are edible, but may be considered inedible due to the presence of agrochemicals. Secondly, the inedible parts of food may be upcycled back into the food supply chain, such as high protein bars in the case of brewers spent grain, or be diverted to animal feed, which eventually results in animal products for human consumption. Finally, from a practical perspective, it is near impossible to quantify food waste at the consumer level without also considering inedible parts.
However, for the purposes of the Food Loss Index, FAO does not consider inedible parts of food since the Index’ and adopts a more detailed conceptual framework. The framework distinguishes between the intended use of food products, fragments them into edible, inedible, feed and non-feed parts, and ultimately considers their destination which could either be food, productive non-food use, or food loss and waste. Based on this conceptual framework, FAO food loss estimates consider only edible parts of of food that were originally intended for human consumption but are not put to any economically productive use. As such, inedible parts of food and food products that could be consumed by humans but are used as feed are not considered food losses since these are considered not to have been intended for human consumption. Additionally, food intended for human consumption that is not eaten by humans but is otherwise put to productive non-food economic use such as animal feed is also not considered food loss.
The subtle distinction means that UNEP’s lower-level supply chain food waste estimates consider inedible food parts that are not considered by FAO’s higher-level food loss estimates. Additionally, despite the FAO’s consideration of food loss on the basis of food intended for human consumption, the conceptual framework seems to contradict itself by considering feed and other economically productive uses as part of this human consumption. Effectively, this means that without a consensus on the scope and definition of food loss and waste, estimates may be inaccurate with some arguing that they may be inflated and presenting an overstatement of the problem. This is further compounded by both indices relying on data from a few high-income countries with most food waste studies being at the household level.
The other problem with the distinction between food loss and food waste lies in the perceived causes of wastage at the two levels of the supply chain. Attributing food waste at higher levels of the supply chain to unintentional causes while those at lower levels to negligence and conscious decisions implies that human decisions or error are not at play at higher levels. Consequently, interventions at the post-harvest level primarily focus on technological interventions such as cold chains, and ignore the socio-economic and market factors that affect the overall agricultural and food system.
In reality, however, human factors are also largely to blame for post-harvest food losses. The greater structure of the food system which isolates farmers from their end markets is one of the biggest human-driven factor of post-harvest food losses. Farmers are left unaware of farm-stage factors such as inability to predict demand and timing of harvest which leads to surplus production and translates into spoilage through the supply chain. Further, farmers are unable to negotiate better purchase prices with market intermediaries and retailers who maintain a power imbalance and in some instances cancel orders at the last minute. As a result, farmers cannot afford to access training or facilities for better farming methods and experience substantial losses due to poor harvesting and handling techniques, high mortality from low sanitary standards and animal husbandry techniques, or make poor choices in prevailing growing or rearing conditions.
The problem provides the solution
Despite the competing definitions and scope of food, available data and difficulties in conceptualising food waste demonstrate that food waste is a big issue. It should be a matter of concern for all food supply chain actors, regardless of the labels we ascribe to wastage at differently levels of the supply chain. The challenges of having accurate estimates, clear distinctions and the implications of interventions just go to show that the challenge cannot be solved by considering each stage of the supply chain in isolation of the other. Technological interventions at higher levels of the food supply chain are unlikely to be effective if the operating structures, marketing standards and consumer requirements at lower levels of the supply chain are not addressed. Conversely, if we continue to prioritise waste reduction efforts at the consumer level of the food supply chain, the efforts are unlikely to yield a significant reduction in food waste if farmers are isolated from their end markets.
FeedBug is developing a multi-stakeholder collaborative approach to address food waste at all levels of the food supply chain. For us, this begins with understanding the roles of different food systems actors and discovering their common goals within the food system. More than simply recycling food and organic waste into farm inputs, our goal is to develop a circular food production model where stakeholders can move away from a fragmented food system. That means directly or indirectly involving farmers, consumers, retailers, institutions and government actors in a concerted effort to reduce inefficiencies within the system that result in food waste.
Our vision for an improved food systems cuts across all levels of the food supply chain. To support farmers access farm inputs, training in better farming methods and better market conditions, ensure consumers are alive to their role as active food citizens by empowering them to take control of their food choices, and reducing the gap between retailers, market intermediaries and food processors to influence them to reconsider their food sourcing systems and support the vital interests of farmers. For us, the opportunity to achieve this systems change lies within one of its fundamental challenges - that massive amounts of food go to waste at all levels of the supply chain.
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