Food Waste Index Report 2024

• The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Programme) has jointly released the Food Waste Index Report 2024.
• According to the Food Waste Index Report 2024, households across the globe wasted over one billion meals a day in 2022.

KEY HIGHLIGHTS:

• The report defines “food waste” as “food and the associated inedible parts removed from the human food supply chain”.
• ‘‘Food loss” is defined as “all the crop and livestock human-edible commodity quantities that, directly or indirectly, completely exit the post-harvest/slaughter production/supply chain up to, and excluding, the retail level”.
• It noted that in 2022, there were 05 billion tonnes of food waste generated (including inedible parts), amounting to 132 kilograms per capita and almost one-fifth of all food available to consumers.
• Many low- and middle-income countries continue to lack adequate systems for tracking progress to meet Sustainable Development Goal 12.3 of halving food waste by
• At present, only four G-20 countries (Australia, Japan, U.K., U.S.) and the European Union have food waste estimates suitable for tracking progress.
• Hotter countries appear to generate more food waste per capita in households, potentially due to higher consumption of fresh foods with substantial inedible parts and a lack of robust cold chains.
• As compared to urban areas, rural ones generally wasted less food, due to “greater diversion of food scraps to pets, livestock and home composting”.
• As of 2022, only 21 countries had included food loss and/or waste reduction in their climate plans or Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).

ABOUT FOOD WASTE INDEX REPORT:

• It a study jointly authored by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Programme), a U.K.-based non-profit.
• It tracks the global and national generation of food and inedible parts wasted at the retail and consumer (household and food service) levels.

ABOUT UNITED NATIONS ENVIRONMENT PROGRAMME:

• It is the leading global environmental authority established in
• It sets the global environmental agenda, promotes the coherent implementation of the environmental dimension of sustainable development within the United Nations system.
• Headquarters: Nairobi, Kenya.