Image depicting Fight Food Loss. Feed Families.
Photo: WFP/Badre Bhaji

Fight Food Loss. Feed Families.

There's enough food to feed all of us. The problem is nearly 30% of it is lost or wasted.

Help families save food
The Flipside of Food Waste

In high-income countries, most food is wasted after it’s purchased, in restaurants, homes and hotels. But in low-income countries, where the vast majority of the world’s hungriest people live, most food loss occurs during growth, harvest and storage. That’s where the UN World Food Programme (WFP) comes in.

We have the solutions, but we need your help to bring them to scale.

$1T

worth of edible food is lost or wasted every year

20 lbs

is the average amount of food Americans waste each month

40%

of all the food African farmers grow is lost to pests and mold

6 Food Waste facts

Fact One

One-third of the world’s food is lost or wasted each year. Reversing this trend would preserve enough food to feed 2 billion people . That’s more than twice the number of undernourished people across the globe.

Source: 8 Facts to Know About Food Waste and Hunger Photo: Unsplash/Elevate

Fact Two

Consumers in rich countries waste almost as much food as the entire net food production of sub-Saharan Africa each year. At the same time, the value of post-harvest food loss in Sub-Saharan Africa is more than what the region receives in food assistance.

Source: 8 Facts to Know About Food Waste and Hunger Photo: Unsplash/Scott Warman

Fact Three

If wasted food were a country, it would be the third largest producer of carbon dioxide in the world, after the U.S. and China.

Source: 8 Facts to Know About Food Waste and Hunger Photo: Unsplash/Veeterzy

Fact Four

Cutting global food waste in half by 2030 is one of the U.N.’s top priorities. In fact, it’s one of the organization’s 17 sustainable development goals.

Source: 8 Facts to Know About Food Waste and Hunger Photo: WFP/Jonathan Eng

Fact Five

WFP provides family farmers with air-tight storage containers that cut their food loss from 40% to 2%.

Source: 8 Facts to Know About Food Waste and Hunger Photo: WFP/Davinah Nabirye

Fact Six

WFP tackles food waste by boosting farmers' access to local markets. By sourcing food locally, we provide a market for farmers' surplus produce so it's not left to rot.

Source: 8 Facts to Know About Food Waste and Hunger Photo: WFP/Will Baxter

Help Us Fight Food Loss

Photo: WFP
Food Storage

Around the world, subsistence farmers can lose nearly half of their harvest simply because they don’t have access to modern storage equipment. WFP is changing that with silos and air-tight bags.

925 lbs

A single silo can hold up to 925 pounds of dried beans, nuts or corn.

870M

If only one-third of the lost food could be recovered, it would feed more than 870 million people.

Learn more +
Photo: WFP/Fares Khoailed
Nonperishables

The typical WFP food ration includes long-lasting staples like flour, dried beans, salt and cooking oil – all packaged in sturdy containers. This ensures the items won’t spoil for weeks or months, so nothing gets thrown away.

45%

Nearly half of all fruits and vegetables are wasted – the highest rate of any food product.

16

Nonperishable, tasteless micronutrient powders contain the recommended daily intake of 16 vitamins and minerals.

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Photo: WFP/Mustapha Bribi
Innovation

Hydroponics, hermetic containers, recovery supply chains and virtual farmers markets. These are just a few of the innovations that allow communities to grow, sell and store food in impossible places.

E-cards

E-cards allow people to purchase food on their own. It’s a solution to both poverty and retailers’ food waste.

5 Tons

One pilot project recovered 5 tons of food destined for landfills and made it into school meals.

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Policy

The U.S. Farm Bill authorizes several critical programs that take American-grown crops like rice, corn, wheat and soy beans and distribute them to vulnerable people in need. It’s just one of the many policies we work on to end hunger.

7 ships

A fleet of seven ships carried wheat from Oregon to Yemen in 2018 – enough to feed 6M people.

40M

The McGovern-Dole Food for Education Program has benefited over 40M school children since 2003.

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Saved Food Feeds Families

https://www.wfpusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/SSD_20200115_WFP-Gabriela_Vivacqua_1804-600x337.jpg
Photo: WFP/Gabriela Vivacqua It's in the Bag! This Simple Storage System Is Slashing Food Loss.

Farmers in Sudan lose up to 40% of their crops every year. Our hermetic bags cost just $2 and reduce loss to less than 2%.

Read more +
https://www.wfpusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/wfp-food_super_plumppy_sup-600x337.png
The Coolest Job You've Never Heard of: Keeping 4M Tons of Food From Going Bad

Extreme temperatures. Dropped from a plane. Springing leaks. These are the food safety considerations of the largest hunger-fighting organization in the world.

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https://www.wfpusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/waste-v-loss-hero-600x337.jpg
Photo: WFP USA Food Waste vs. Food Loss: Know the Difference and Help #StopTheWaste Today

Global hunger isn’t about a lack of food. There’s enough to feed all of us. Unfortunately, one third of all the food produced for humans never actually gets eaten.

Read more +
See more stories

Hacking Hunger – Episode 20: The Forgotten Food Waste Crisis

WFP’s resident food waste expert shares how “tupperware for crops” could change the way the world’s small-scale farmers do business.

View all podcasts

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