Global hunger: UN Research Estimates Over 1 Billion Meals Are Wasted Every Day

According to a recent United Nations (UN) report, 800 million people die hungry while over 1 billion meals are wasted daily globally.

It is estimated that in 2022, families, restaurants, and other food service and retail establishments wasted 1.05 billion metric tons of food, or nearly one-fifth of the world's food supply.

“Food waste is a global tragedy. Millions will go hungry today as food is wasted across the world.

"Not only is this a major development issue, but the impacts of such unnecessary waste are causing substantial costs to the climate and nature,” it stated.

The statistics stand in sharp contrast to the report's conclusions that 783 million people worldwide suffer from hunger and that almost one-third of the world's population experiences food insecurity.

According to UNEP Director Inger Andersen, the startling data in the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Food Waste Index Report 2024 cast doubt on the world's capacity to share the food it produces and emphasize the contribution of food waste to climate change.

The analysis made a distinction between food “waste,” or food thrown out by homes, restaurants, and retail establishments, and food “loss,” or food rejected early in the supply chain, such as vegetables that rot in fields and meat that spoils when not refrigerated.

In 2022, households wasted 631 million metric tons of food, or 60% of the total. The food service industry was responsible for 28% of the waste, while the retail industry contributed 12%.

The survey states that an individual wastes 79 kilograms (174 pounds) of food a year, or at least one billion meals of edible food wasted in families per day.

According to the research, they are rather low numbers. In spite of improvements in data collection, the UN's 2021 report on food waste found that, despite countries' inconsistent monitoring, the amount of data points at the household level had almost doubled.

It said that only 21 countries have included food loss and waste in their national climate strategies, despite the fact that they make up 8% to 10% of all emissions that warm the world, or about five times more than emissions from the aviation sector.

Producing food uses a great deal of land and water, and food systems contribute roughly one-third of the emissions that warm the world.

Most food waste ends up in landfills, where it decomposes and releases methane. Methane is a strong greenhouse gas that, during the first 20 years, has around 80 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide.

According to the findings, food waste may even exacerbate climate change in addition to fueling it.

It was discovered that countries with higher temperatures waste more food than those with lower temperatures because it is more difficult to transport and store food before it goes bad.