Share of wasted food in the U.S. by industry sector 2012

This statistic depicts the results of a written survey conducted by the Food Waste Reduction Alliance and the Business for Social Responsibilty in 2012. Survey respondents were asked regarding the distribution of food waste in the United States in 2012, broken down by industry sector. Full-service restaurants are estimated to have generated 22 percent of total food waste in the United States in 2012. That corresponded to a value of about 15,851 pounds.

Distribution of food waste disposal in the United States in 2012, by industry sector*

Characteristic	Food waste share
Residential	47%
Full-service restaurants	22%
Quick-service restaurants	15%
Institutional	11%
Industrial	3%
Grocery stores	2%

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Release date

April 2013

More information

Region

United States

Survey time period

2012

Number of respondents

26 respondents

Special properties

Targeted group of GMA and FMI members**

Method of interview

Questionnaire

Supplementary notes

* Figures include publicly available date and primary data, collected directly from the conducted survey. Additional information regarding the methodology can be found on page 21.
** GMA = Grocery Manufacturers Association; FMI = Food Marketing Institute.
Due to the limited number of conducted interviews, the results should be interpreted carefully.

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