• In the United Kingdom, “a shocking 30-40% of all food is never eaten”:
  – in the last decade the amount of food British people threw into the bin went up by 15%;
  – overall, £20 billion (approximately $38 billion US dollars) worth of food is thrown away, every year.
• In the US 40-50% of all food ready for harvest never gets eaten:
  – of the food that does eventually reach households, some 14% is wasted, resulting in something like $43 billion of wastage;
  – if food reaching supermarkets, restaurants and cafeterias is added to the household figure, that wastage goes up to 27%.
• In Sweden, families with small children throw out about a quarter of the food they buy.
• In some parts of Africa a quarter or more of the crops go bad before they can be eaten. More generally, high losses in developing nations are mainly due to a lack of technology and infrastructure as well as insect infestations, microbial growth, damage and high temperatures and humidity.
• The impact of this waste is not just financial. Environmentally this leads to:
  – wasteful use of chemicals such as fertilizers and pesticides;
  – more fuel used for transportation;
  – more rotting food, creating more methane – one of the most harmful greenhouse gases that contributes to climate change;
  – reducing wastage in the US by half could reduce adverse environmental impacts by 25 percent through reduced landfill use, soil depletion and applications of fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides.

– The direct medical cost of hunger and malnutrition is estimated at $30 billion each year.