Food Loss and Waste Theme Month 2023

Food loss and waste (FLW) impacts all of us — from uneaten holiday leftovers to that inconspicuous bag of salad greens that lingers in the back of your refrigerator. A staggering 30 to 40 percent of food produced is either lost or wasted throughout the farm-to-consumer supply chain. Of the 1.4 billion tons of food wasted globally every year, the United States discards 67 million tons, making food the single largest component taking up U.S. landfills. When food rots, it emits methane, a powerful greenhouse gas with 84 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide over a 20-year period. As a result, FLW contributes approximately 8 to 10 percent of all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. If FLW were a country, it would be the third largest producer of carbon dioxide in the world after the United States and China.