Estimating and Addressing America's Food Losses

TLDR

Abstract

T he U.S. food supply is the most varied and abundant in the world. Americans spend a smaller share of their disposable income on food than citizens of any other country and choose from an average of 50,000 different food products on a typical outing to the supermarket. In 1994, the food supply provided an estimated 3,800 calories per person per day, enough to supply every American with more than one and a half times their average daily energy needs. Given this abundance, few of the Nation’s resources have traditionally been devoted to measuring or reducing food waste. In recent years, growing concern about hunger, resource conservation, and the environmental and economic costs associated with food waste have raised public awareness of food loss. This in turn has accelerated public and private efforts to make better use of available food supplies by recovering safe and nutritious food that would otherwise be wasted. Of course, not all food that is lost is suitable for consumption (fig. 1). Some losses—like the condemnation