Study: Up to half the world's food goes to waste

Out-of-date and unopened food from a household is thrown away in a dustbin. / Press Association via AP Images

As much as half of the food produced in the world ends up going to waste, a London-based study found.

The Institution of Mechanical Engineers found that 1.2 billion to two billion of the four billion metric tons of food produced globally goes uneaten because of inadequate infrastructure as well as irresponsible retailer and consumer behavior.

"The amount of food wasted and lost around the world is staggering," Dr. Tim Fox, head of Energy and Environment at the institution, said in a release. "This is food that could be used to feed the world's growing population - as well as those in hunger today."

• Rescuing wasted food to fight hunger
• Experts: Up to half of world's food goes to waste

Developed countries like Britain and the United States have relatively efficient farming methods, so the majority of waste occurs on the consumer's end. The report found that about seven million tons of food - valued at about 10 billion pounds -- or about $16 billion -- is thrown away in British homes every year.

In Third World countries in places like sub-Saharan Africa and South-East Asia, farmers and producers contribute to the most wastage; inefficient harvesting, inadequate local transportation, and poor infrastructure has the largest impact, the report says.

The study has similar findings to another by the Natural Resources Defense Council in March. Their research found that Americans throw out 33 pounds of food each month.

The Institution of Mechanical Engineers calls for more efficient food practices, especially due to the fact the United Nations predicts there will be another three billion mouths to feed by the end of the century.

Their recommendations include having the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization work with international engineers in spreading the best knowledge and know-how in agricultural technology across the world.

They also call for rapidly developing countries, like China, to focus more in waste minimization when building infrastructure. In developed countries, they ask governments to help change consumer culture by discouraging retailers from tossing food based on cosmetic appearance or promoting excessive purchasing - like two-for-one sales or oversized packages.

[Gman-Cali]

I already knew this, I see it on a daily basis as a Commercial Sanitation Route Driver. It is sad that people go hungry when there is so much food being thrown away !
sanitation workers alliance network Lets "TALK TRASH" !

[reginadowning]

Well, it would help if American restaurants would stop loading entrees with three times the food the average person can eat!

[Stopfmg]

We don't need GMO's to feed the population, just better distribution!

[walter17]

that's because the other half is fat!

[podboq]

so half the world's arable land is destroyed(turned into farmland) to farm stuff that just gets thrown away. great, raped landscapes and full landfills.

makes me so proud.

God..... please, send Apophis to hit Earth.... please. It's had enough.

[scoobydoobydank]

if these starving nations had equipment to dig a channel out and connect two sources of water, they would have access to water and food. I don't know how a river would work through such sandy environments but perhaps they could supply themselves with enough clay and large sediments to make it happen. Give them a few old tractors and digging machines to work with, and maybe the able bodied ones would get it done (with guidance of course).

[dobermantmacleod]

It takes about 10 calories of energy to produce 1 calorie of food. The best way to improve food production and distribution is to adopt this new clean very very cheap and super abundant energy technology: LENR.

"A volume about the size of a #2 pencil eraser of water provides as much energy as two 48-gallon drums of gasoline. That is 355,000 times the amount of energy per volume - five orders of magnitude." ( http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/New-LENR-Machine-is-the-Best-Yet.html ).

This phenomenon (LENR) has been confirmed in hundreds of published scientific papers: http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJtallyofcol.pdf

"Over 2 decades with over 100 experiments worldwide indicate LENR is real, much greater than chemical..." --Dennis M. Bushnell, Chief Scientist, NASA Langley Research Center

"Total replacement of fossil fuels for everything but synthetic organic chemistry." --Dr. Joseph M. Zawodny, NASA

By the way, here is a survey of some of the companies that are bringing LENR to commercialization: http://www.cleantechblog.com/2011/08/the-new-breed-of-energy-catalyzers-ready-for-commercialization.html

For those who still aren't convinced, here is a paper I wrote that contains some pretty convincing evidence: http://coldfusionnow.org/the-evidence-for-lenr/

[STEVENROHAN]

You know, I really dont understand why the dont take food just prior expiration to give it to the needy, homeless.

Or the food from Restaurants end of the night.

Lots of Entrepreneurs out there. Many with good hearts.

I am puzzled by why no one has ever bothered to take excess supply and put it to demand. Maybe give a Tax Write off for it or something.

[stopkillingourwilderness]

wherever it is legal, restaurants, groceries and caterers give the food to food banks. it is not legal in many places to feed the homeless directly, however, probably from fears of food poisoning. we leave our still-good-but-not-gonna-eat-it food out for our local homeless along with our payable recyclables but restaurants and stores are not allowed to do the same here. totally wasteful, i agree.

[sensi2]

Such things always existed, could certainly be rationalized and generalized, yet nowadays corporate guidelines would have you fired if you were seen giving the company unsold perishing grocery to the local bums, so this must be put into the trash first... People don't die of starvation among developed countries where the excess is unless it is from abuse or accidental, there is local, gov or charity food aid for the needy and homeless, the life-threatened demand is elsewhere, recurrent, and I guess it would be almost vain if not even counter-productive -food aid can also kill local agriculture and decrease even more self-reliance- to take that perishing excess supply over there...