Food Waste Intelligence

The world is wasting 1.05 billion tons of food a year, amounting to 132 kilograms per capita and almost one-fifth of all food available to consumers. The foodservice industry is responsible for 28 percent of this waste. Those were some of the findings of the UN Environment Programme’s Food Waste Index Report 2024, which calculated food waste for the most recent year data is available, 2022.

Leanpath and our foodservice partners prevented a massive amount of food waste in 2023: over 17 million pounds of food kept out of the bin. See how that translates into other environmental and social benefits to people and the planet...

Leanpath CEO and Co-Founder Andrew Shakman joined USAID's food loss and waste podcast Kitchen Sink to share some perspectives on the importance of food waste prevention, the critical role of measurement in the prevention process, and how kitchen culture changes with a focus on food waste. "If we want to have true system level impact, we need to do it at the prevention level," Andrew explains. "We're not going to compost our way out of a food waste problem that is immense and not stopping." Listen in to the conversation here.

Closing out a year with increasing focus on the importance of food waste reduction, the U.S. released its Draft National Strategy for Reducing Food Loss and Waste and Recycling Organics in early December. Release of the Draft National Strategy is significant, and in fact long overdue, as the U.S. committed to halving food loss and waste reduction in support of Target 12.3 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) back in 2015 – and a united, measurement-focused strategy is needed to get the U.S. on the proper pathway with urgency.

Earlier this month, the US EPA’s food recovery hierarchy, the upside downtriangle which has guided food waste reduction efforts since the 1990s, got a makeover. And that’s a good thing, as it reflects the continued evolution of research and elevation of activity on food waste reduction.