Food Waste Most Prevalent in Affluent Countries

New research published in the journal Plos One suggests that consumers waste more food than previously thought. A team around The Hague-based researcher Monika van den Bos Verma compared food availability and daily calorie intake in different countries and found that the average world citizen wasted 727 calories per day. In the U.S., that number was a lot higher at 1,572 calories per day – the second on the list after Bermuda.

Additionally, one third of all food goes to waste before even reaching the market, according to the FAO. This is commonly known as food loss.

The researchers found that more affluent countries tend to throw out the most food, with Norway, Hong Kong and Germany all on the top of the list and developing countries wasting much smaller amounts. Out of the 177 countries that were part of the analysis, 40 were identified as not wasting any food per the study setup, since their food availability was below the daily caloric need of their inhabitants.