How much food do we actually throw away?
Just over a billion tonnes a year — and most of it is binned in ordinary kitchens, not lost in factories or on farms. Below are the figures, where they come from, and the habits that measurably cut waste at home.
The numbers
All figures come from United Nations reporting — the Food Waste Index Report 2024 and UNFCCC analysis of emissions and cost.
of food wasted worldwide in a single year — almost a fifth of all food available to people.
of that waste happens in households — kitchens like yours, not factories or farms.
of food the average person throws away every year, all over the world.
of edible food binned every single day while 783M people go hungry.
of global greenhouse gas emissions come from food loss and waste.
in food is lost or wasted across the world annually.
Where the waste actually happens
It is easy to assume food waste is an industrial problem — supermarkets skipping imperfect vegetables, farms ploughing crops back under. That happens, but it is not the bulk of it.
Around 60% of all food waste happens in households. The remainder is split between food service and retail. In other words, the single largest lever is not policy or logistics — it is what happens between someone's shopping bag and their bin.
That is uncomfortable, but it is also good news: it is the part you directly control. And household waste is rarely a decision. Almost nobody chooses to throw food out. It happens because a bag of spinach got pushed behind a jar, because a date label was misread, or because the second yoghurt was bought while the first was still in the door.
“Best before” vs “use by”
These two labels mean completely different things, and confusing them is one of the most common reasons perfectly good food ends up in the bin.
Best before
MindesthaltbarkeitsdatumA quality date, not a safety date.
The producer guarantees full flavour, texture and colour until this date. Afterwards the food is usually still safe — pasta, rice, tinned goods, coffee and many others keep far longer. Judge it: look at it, smell it, taste a little.
Use by
VerbrauchsdatumA safety date. Take it seriously.
Used on foods that spoil in ways you cannot reliably see or smell — raw minced meat, poultry, fresh fish. After this date the food can be unsafe even if it looks fine. Do not eat it, and do not rely on a sniff test.
Rule of thumb: a passed “best before” is an invitation to check the food yourself. A passed “use by” is not — when in doubt with raw meat, poultry or fish, throw it out.
How to waste less at home
Six habits that target the actual causes: buying what you already own, losing track of what is in the back of the fridge, and misreading dates.
Know what you already own
Most household waste starts at the shop, not the bin — you buy a second jar because you forgot about the first. An inventory you can check in ten seconds prevents the duplicate purchase entirely.
Cook by expiry, not by craving
Before deciding what to cook, look at what expires first and build the meal around it. This one reversal of order removes most of the food that would otherwise quietly time out.
Freeze at the deadline, not after
Bread, cooked leftovers, herbs, and most meat freeze well — but only if they go in while still good. The freezer is a pause button, not a repair.
Shop your kitchen first
Plan the week from what is already in the fridge before writing the list. Under-buying slightly is cheap to fix; over-buying is what ends up in the bin.
Store things where they actually last
Herbs in water, potatoes dark and dry, apples away from other produce because they speed up ripening. Small placement changes buy real days of shelf life.
Give leftovers a fixed slot
Leftovers get wasted because they have no plan. One recurring evening a week to eat what is open clears the fridge before anything turns.
Knowing what you own is most of the battle.
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