This quote from the food waste documentary Just Eat illustrates the seeming indifference consumers have toward wasting food. Every year, an estimated 1.3 billion tons of food produced for human consumption-about 33% of all food by weight-is lost or wasted within the supply chain (Gustavsson, Cederberg, and Sonesson 2011). As a consequence, food waste is associated with multiple negative environmental, economic, and social outcomes.
Magnitude of the Food Waste Problem
Environmental ImpactAs the production of food is resource-intensive, food losses and waste are accompanied by high environmental costs. For example, food waste results in a significant loss of valuable resources such as water, soil, and energy used during the production, processing, marketing, transporting, and refrigeration of the food (Parfitt, Barthel, and Macnaughton 2010; Thyberg and Tonjes 2016). Moreover, food waste is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. If food waste were to be considered a country, its carbon footprint would rank as the third top global carbon-emitting country after the U.S. and China (Beretta et al. 2013;FAO 2013).
Economic ImpactFood waste also represents tremendous economic losses. At the European level, along the entire supply chain around 88 million tons of food waste are generated annually, causing a monetary loss of €143 billion (Stenmarck et al. 2016). From a consumer perspective, the financial losses caused by wasting food are about 10% of a consumer's food spending (Buzby, Wells, and Hyman 2014), or approximately €300 to €400 per year for an average four-person household (Buzby et al. 2014;Quested and Johnson 2009). Consumer Food Waste: Understanding why Consumers Waste so Much Food | 13
Societal ImpactAt the societal level, food waste leads to food safety concerns, an increase in food prices, and a reduction in consumer well-being (Van Doorn 2016). According to FAO et al. (2019), the total amount of food waste generated every year could feed more than four times the 800+ million people-11% of the global population-who currently suffer from hunger. Food insecurity is even an issue in developed countries. For example, approximately 12 to 15% of U.S. households face food insecurity (Coleman-Jensen, Gregory, and Singh 2013; USDA ERS 2017), and the number of European households that need support from food banks is steadily increasing (Tyler 2019;Voedselbanken Nederland 2018). Given the malnutrition in both developing and developed countries and taking into account the world's increasing population
