Almost a third of all food produced worldwide is never eaten, leading to 1.3 billion tons of food waste each year. This includes around 45% of all fruit and vegetables and 20% of meat. Just one quarter of this wasted food could feed the 795 million chronically hungry people around the world.
Of this waste, over half (54%) is lost in upstream processes, including agricultural production and post-harvest handling. The other 46% is wasted in processing, distribution and consumption. With the cost of this totaling $750 billion per year to the global economy, addressing food wastage offers significant potential to ease pressures on natural resources and the tightening balance of supply and demand.