Food Loss vs. Food Waste
Food loss is the unintentional reduction of food available for human consumption due to inefficiencies in supply chains, poor infrastructure, and lack of technology. This mainly occurs in developing regions during the post-harvest and processing stages of food production.
Food waste is the intentional discarding of edible items, mainly by retailers and consumers. This mainly occurs in developed regions. About 1.3 billion tons of food is wasted globally per year. This amounts to about one third of all food being produced for human consumption.
Food Produced vs. Food Wasted Annually
The map above shows that most of the world’s food is grown in Asia; however, most of the world’s food is wasted in North America and Australia.
What Kinds of Food Are Not Consumed
In the diagram above, the percentage of food in green represents food that is consumed and the percentage of food in white represents food that is lost or wasted. The reasons that some types of food are more wasted than others include where the food is produced, how much of it is produced, and the amount of time it takes for that specific product to spoil.
To learn more about the causes of food waste in various regions, click here.
To learn more about the environmental and social impacts of food waste, click here.
References
Gustavsson, Jenny, Christel Cederberg, Ulf Sonesson, Robert Van Otterdiijk, and Alexandre Meybeck. “Global Food Losses and Food Waste.” FAO, 2011. Web. 6 Nov. 2014.
Parfitt, Julian. “Food Waste within Food Supply Chains: Quantification and Potential for Change to 2050.” Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences 365.1554, Food Security: Feeding the World in 2050 (2010): 3065-3081. Fao.org. PDF file.
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