Counting Cost of Food Waste

Meat, poultry and fish make up 12 per cent of the volume of US food waste, and accounts for 30 per cent of the value of those losses.

A report from the USDA Economic Research Service (ERS) highlights that in 2010, 31 per cent, or 133 billion pounds (5.9 million tonnes), of food available for consumption at the retail and consumer levels in the United States went uneaten.

Two-thirds of this loss occurred in homes, restaurants and other away-from-home eating places, and one-third occurred in grocery stores and other food retailers.

The researchers broke down the losses by food group and between the retail and consumer levels.

Of the animal protein food groups, overall losses of dairy foods were highest in volume at 83 billion pounds. This total breaks down as 53.8 billion pounds of liquid milk and 29.1 billion pounds of other dairy products.

The 'meat, poultry and fish' figure was 58.4 billion pounds, comprising losses of meat, poultry meat and fish & shellfish at 31.6, 22.0 and 4.8 billion pounds, respectively.

In the same year, 8.4 billion pounds of eggs were lost in the US.

Compared to other food groups, the proportion of these losses at retails level is fairly low, ranging from four per cent for meat and poultry to liquid milk and other dairy products at 12 and 11 per cent, respectively.

However, while the ERS report highlights the problems in the US, at the World Meat Congress last week, the impact of food waste was shown to be a global problem, affecting developed and developing nations alike.

Berhe Tekola from the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations told the congress that 1.6 billion tonnes or 30 per cent of global food production is either lost or wasted each year.