Progress towards Sustainable Utilisation and Management of Food Wastes in the Global Economy

Table 1

Representative global examples of food loss (waste) [11].

Food loss (waste)	Reference
In the USA alone, annual food production consumes about 120 cubic kilometres of irrigation water. People throw away 30 percent of this food, which corresponds to 40 billion litres of water.	[184]
United Kingdom households waste an estimated 6.7 million MT of food every year, around one-third of the 21.7 million MT purchased. This means that approximately 32 percent of all food purchased per year is not eaten. Most of this (5.9 million tonnes or 88 percent) is currently collected by local authorities. Most of the food waste (4.1 million MT or 61 percent) is avoidable and could have been eaten if it had been better managed.	[185]
The amount of food lost or wasted every year is equivalent to more than half of the world’s annual cereals crop (2.3 billion MT in 2009/2010). Only an estimated 43 percent of the cereal produced is available for human consumption, as a result of harvest and postharvest distribution losses and use of cereal for animal feed.	[186]
The water applied globally for irrigation to grow food that is wasted would meet the domestic needs of 9 billion people.	[187]
Annual food losses and waste are estimated at about 30 percent for cereals, 40 to 50 percent for root crops, 30 percent for fish, and 20 percent for oilseeds and meat.	[188]
On a global scale, just 43 percent of the fruits and vegetables produced are consumed and the remaining 57 percent are wasted.	[189]
Food waste accounts for roughly US 680 billion in industrialised countries and US 310 billion in developing countries.	[190]
Consumers in rich countries waste about 222 million MT of food every year, which is nearly equivalent to the entire net food production of 230 million MT of sub-Saharan Africa.	[185, 191]
Roughly one-third of food is lost or wasted. That translates into 1.3 billion MT each year, worth nearly one trillion US dollars, and is the equivalent of 6 to 10 percent of human-generated greenhouse gas emissions.	[192]
Food spoilage and waste account for annual losses of US 310 billion in developing countries, where nearly 65 percent of loss occurs at the production, processing, and postharvest stages.	[192]
In sub-Saharan Africa, up to 150 kg of the food produced per person is lost each year; depending on the crop, 15–35 percent of food harvested may be lost before it leaves the field.	[192]