The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has called for a renewed global commitment to zero tolerance for food loss and waste.
According to the FAO, one-third of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted globally each year. This loss and waste occurs throughout the supply chain, from farm to fork.
Beyond food, it represents a waste of labour, water, energy, land and other inputs.
In the UK, campaigners at the Women’s Institute are behind an initiative to encourage supermarkets and retailers to do more to tackle food waste.
The campaigners say the UK wastes more food than anywhere else in Europe, costing the average household £470 per year.
Farmland roughly the size of Wales is being used to produce all the food that then goes on to be wasted in UK homes, generating the equivalent carbon emissions to one in four cars on the roads.
The campaigners say that if retailers and businesses managed to redistribute just a quarter of the food currently wasted, there would be enough food to feed the 870 million people living in hunger.
Earlier this year, an Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Efra) committee said British supermarkets should relax rules they have on rejecting 'wonky' fruit and veg for sale in efforts to combat food waste.
The committee said that the government should establish a national food waste reduction target to drive efforts to reduce food waste.
The report estimated that one-third of food produced globally is wasted, and in the UK £10bn worth of food is thrown away by households every year.
