Food We Produce but Never Eat, Food We Buy but Never Eat

The International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste is observed on 29 September. The occasion should make us confront a troubling contradiction: while hundreds of millions of people still go hungry and billions struggle to afford a healthy diet, an enormous share of the food already produced never reaches a human stomach.
This year’s theme, “The Transformative Potential of Reducing Food Loss and Waste,” goes far beyond avoiding waste. Reducing food loss and waste can improve food security and nutrition, conserve natural resources, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and increase economic productivity. In other words, producing more food is only one part of the challenge; we must also use the food we already produce better.
The scale of the problem can be analyzed through data. FAO estimates indicate that around 13 percent of food produced globally is lost after harvest and before reaching retail. At the other end of the food chain, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Food Waste Index Report 2024 estimates that another 19 percent of food available to consumers is wasted in households, restaurants and other food-service establishments, and retail businesses.
This means that food loss and food waste are related but distinct problems. Food may be lost between the farm and the market because of inadequate harvesting techniques, poor storage, weak transport infrastructure, lack of refrigeration, processing deficiencies or disruptions in supply chains. It may then be wasted at the retail, food-service or household level because too much is purchased or prepared, edible food is discarded, or markets and consumers reject food that remains safe to eat. Both ultimately produce the same unacceptable result: resources have been consumed to produce food that nobody eats.
Food waste and food loss are also linked with global hunger. According to The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2026 (SOFI), global hunger declined for the third consecutive year in 2025, yet approximately 645 million people still faced hunger. Around 2.1 billion people experienced moderate or severe food insecurity, while approximately 2.69 billion people, almost one-third of humanity, could not afford a healthy diet. Thus, the world simultaneously faces a problem of insufficient access to food and inefficient use of the food it already produces.
When food is lost, it is not the physical commodity that disappears. Every kilogram of food embodies land, water, seeds, fertilizers, energy, labour, transportation, finance and human effort.
FAO (2019) estimates that the annual value of food lost before retail is around US$400 billion. According to UNEP (2024), food wasted at retail and consumer levels represents more than US$1 trillion worth of food each year.
The economic consequences travel throughout the food system. Farmers lose income when crops deteriorate before reaching markets. Businesses bear unnecessary purchasing, storage and disposal costs. Consumers spend money on food they never consume. Governments face greater pressure to secure food supplies, manage waste and support vulnerable populations. Reducing food loss is not only an environmental programme, but it is also an investment in economic efficiency. The environmental consequences are equally serious.
Agriculture requires land and water and contributes to greenhouse gas emissions. When food produced with these resources is never consumed, those resources have effectively been used without fulfilling their primary purpose. FAO estimates that food loss and waste contribute around 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Food that is ultimately not eaten also occupies an estimated 28 percent of the world’s agricultural land area.
Food waste sent to landfill creates another problem. As organic matter decomposes, it produces methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. UNEP treats reducing food loss and waste not only as a food-security intervention but also as an important component of climate action.
Consumers certainly have a major responsibility. As per UNEP (2024), households account for approximately 60 percent of measured food waste at the retail-and-consumer end of the system, demonstrating the importance of changing household behaviour. Better meal planning, sensible purchasing, appropriate storage, understanding date labels and using leftovers can make a substantial difference. But individual behaviour is only part of the solution.
A farmer cannot prevent losses caused by the absence of cold storage simply by becoming more careful. A small producer cannot repair an inadequate rural road network. A retailer cannot independently establish a national food-donation framework. Nor can consumers correct inefficient supply chains, inadequate packaging standards or regulatory barriers that discourage redistribution of safe surplus food. The challenge requires action across the entire agrifood system.
Sustainable Development Goal 12.3 calls for the world, by 2030, to halve per-capita global food waste at retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses. With 2030 approaching, awareness campaigns alone will not be enough.
Countries need reliable systems for measuring food loss and waste, because a problem that is not properly measured is difficult to regulate or reduce. UNEP’s Food Waste Index specifically emphasizes measurement as the foundation for establishing baselines, tracking progress and developing effective reduction policies. It also highlights public-private partnerships as an important mechanism for moving from measurement towards actual reduction.
Governments should examine food loss and waste across the full supply chain: harvesting, storage, transportation, wholesale markets, processing, retail, restaurants and households. Regulatory frameworks can support clearer food-date labelling, safe food donation and redistribution, standards for storage and transportation, incentives for investment in cold chains and processing, separation and recycling of unavoidable organic waste, and mechanisms for turning suitable by-products into animal feed, compost, energy or other useful products.
The objective should follow a simple hierarchy: prevent unnecessary loss first; redistribute safe surplus food where possible; reuse or repurpose what cannot be consumed; and treat disposal as the last option.
Reducing food loss will not automatically place every saved kilogram of food on the table of a hungry person. Hunger results from complex factors including poverty, conflict, inequality, displacement, food prices and lack of physical or economic access to nutritious food.
The SOFI (2026) findings make the affordability issue particularly important. The average global cost of a healthy diet reached 4.28 purchasing-power-parity dollars per person per day in 2025, while nearly one in three people worldwide remained unable to afford such a diet. Preventing avoidable losses should form part of the broader strategy for achieving Zero Hunger.
The most important lesson is that responsibility does not belong to one actor. Farmers need access to better harvesting methods, storage and markets. Governments need policies, legislation, infrastructure and reliable data. Businesses need to examine losses throughout their supply chains. Retailers and restaurants can improve forecasting, portioning and redistribution of surplus food. Researchers and technology providers can develop better preservation, packaging and monitoring systems. Consumers can purchase and prepare food more carefully.
The solution lies in connecting these actions rather than pursuing them separately. FAO describes the potential outcome as a “triple win”: better food security and nutrition; less pressure on natural resources and lower greenhouse gas emissions; and greater productivity and economic growth.
Pakistan faces troubling food waste and food loss problems. While millions of people struggle with food insecurity and the rising cost of nutritious diets, a substantial quantity of food is wasted. The UNEP (2024) estimates household food waste in Pakistan at around 130 kg per person annually, amounting to approximately 30.75 million tonnes a year.
Pakistan receives specific attention in the report. SOFI 2026 examines differences in food-group costs among Pakistani provinces and changes in those costs over time, illustrating how national averages can conceal important geographical and seasonal differences. The problem is not simply food production. What happens between the farm and the consumer matters enormously. According to SOFI 2026, post-farmgate activities account for 70-75 percent of what consumers ultimately pay, with processing, logistics and wholesale activities accounting for a substantial part of value-chain costs.
For Pakistan, reducing food loss requires better storage, cold chains, transportation, processing and market infrastructure. At household and commercial levels, better planning, responsible consumption and systems for redistributing safe surplus food are equally important. SOFI specifically identifies cold chains, infrastructure and food-loss reduction among measures that can help lower the cost of healthy diets. In a country struggling with food affordability and nutrition, food saved can be almost as important as food produced.
The world does need to produce food sustainably for a growing population. But before asking only how much more we can produce, we should also ask how much of what we already produce we can save.