Buying too much | A World Bank report says a family of four wastes $1,600 annually by allowing food to rot in the fridge
WASHINGTON, D.C. (Reuters) — The world loses or wastes 25 to 33 percent of the food it produces for consumption, according to a new World Bank report.
The losses can mean the difference between an adequate diet and malnutrition in many countries, it added.
“The amount of food wasted and lost globally is shameful,” said World Bank president Jim Yong Kim.
“Millions of people around the world go to bed hungry every night, and yet millions of tonnes of food end up in trash cans or spoiled on the way to market.”
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The food losses translate to 400 to 500 calories per person, per day in regions where undernourishment is common, such as Africa and South Asia. In the developed world, the losses can be more like 750 to 1,500 per day.
Cereals represent more than half of all food lost or wasted by calorie content, while fruit and vegetables represent the largest share of global food loss and waste by weight, the World Bank said.
Regional breakdowns show differences in where loss occurs.
In North America, 61 percent of losses are in the consumption stage, such as food purchased and left rotting in refrigerators.
An average family of four in countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom wastes $1,600 and $1,100 per year, respectively, at the consumption stage.
Large supermarkets’ purchasing policies may encourage overproduction, and promotional offers could encourage over-buying by consumers, leading to food waste at home, the report said.
In sub-Saharan Africa, only five percent of food losses are at the consumption stage, but vast amounts of food are wasted during production and processing.
The report said food loss and waste cause huge inefficiencies in economic, energy and natural resource use.
For example, the large amount of water used to grow apples, irrigate rice or roast coffee is wasted if the end product is lost along the way.
Potential solutions to limit waste were said to include changing agricultural production techniques, making large investments in transport and storage infrastructure and changing consumer and commercial behaviour.
