The problem with food waste: Study says US lagging on goals

SALT LAKE CITY — The U.S. is falling short of its goal to halve its food waste before 2030. Instead, at a time when many people are food insecure, per capita food waste has actually increased in the country — one of the highest producers of food that will not be consumed.

A new study by researchers at University of California, Davis, notes that the national goal set in 2016 is to reduce food waste to about 164 pounds per person each year. In a study published in Nature Food, the researchers find we're not even coming close to that.

"On the basis of state policies alone, no state can meet the federal target," per the study, which adds that "without additional intervention at the state and federal level promoting a shift from food waste recycling toward prevention, rescue and repurposing, food generation in the United States will probably remain high."

The problem with food waste

The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that "when food is tossed aside, so too are opportunities to improve food security, economic growth and environmental prosperity." It adds that in the U.S., more than one-third of food is not eaten; it's either lost or wasted.

The USDA says the average family of four "loses $1,500 to uneaten food."

Producing food that won't be eaten "squanders limited resources and poses substantial environmental, economic and social burden on already-strained food systems," according to the UC Davis study's findings, which note the different stages of production at which loss occurs. For instance, a 2023 Food Waste Index Report said that 13% of food produced around the world is lost between harvest and distribution, while another 19% of food that's produced is wasted after food leaves the supply chain and simply isn't used.

The environment may lose even more, experts say.

Other studies, quoted by the index report, suggest that as much as 10% of greenhouse gas emissions around the world are caused by "food waste alone." Nearly 60% of methane emissions from landfills comes from food waste.

And even though recycling or composting food keeps it out of landfills, it doesn't eradicate problems of producing too much to begin with. The researchers note that producing food uses a lot of resources.

"When we waste food, we're wasting all the resources it takes to grow that food, including energy, water and fertilizer. Meanwhile, wasted food represents 8-10% of global greenhouse gas emissions," said principal investigator Edward Spang, associate professor in the Department of Food Science and Technology at UC Davis, quoted in a news release on the research. Spang also directs the university's Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science.

The issue worldwide is big enough that the United Nations made cutting it in half one of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. By 2022, the U.S. — which is the third-largest food waste generator behind China and India — was among countries that had signed on to do better. The U.S. goal, set by the Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency, was to halve the amount of food sent to landfills or incinerated. In 2021, the EPA changed its target a bit to emphasize reducing greenhouse gas emissions that weren't necessary, excluding recycling from its definition of food waste.

The national goals hinge on states and municipalities, which are responsible for actual management of solid waste. As the study explained, the relevant existing policies "are limited in scope and include both voluntary and regulatory instruments aimed at incentivizing food donation (from a food safety/information perspective), regulating use-by date labelling (currently for infant formula only) and determining which food streams can be redirected to animals."

Most U.S. efforts have focused on recycling endeavors such as composting, motivated by worry over the environment. Not much attention has been paid to preventing excess, donating the food to hungry people or using it for animal feed, among other strategies. Efforts to measure policy effectiveness have also been hampered by differences in data collection, which is often incomplete or counted differently, and lack of collaboration, the study found.

What states waste the least food?

The researchers looked at each state's potential to cut back food waste. "They found that recycling policies offered the largest diversion potential. But even when including recycling, many states still fell short of the target. Only California, Vermont and Arizona were projected to achieve the goal of reducing waste to 164 pounds per person," the release reported.

They concluded that no state is likely to meet the federal goal of cutting food waste in half from 2016 levels by 2030 — except, perhaps, "Arkansas in the most optimistic scenario only." Arkansas doesn't score well in terms of diverting food waste, but it produces less than any other state, so it might reach that target. That's in contrast to Arizona, which has policies that divert food waste, but the state also generates a ton of extra food, which inflates its food waste diversion potential.

They found recycling could divert anywhere from 11 to 30 pounds of food waste per person. Washington could divert the most, about a third of its current food waste, followed by California at 26%. But Americans would still generate about 339 pounds of food waste per person each year, which is twice the federal target. The amount of food waste generated is key to what could be diverted.

"We have a huge portion of the American population that is suffering from food insecurity yet we waste more than a third of the food we produce," said first author Sarah Kakadellis, a postdoctoral researcher with the UC Davis Department of Food Science and Technology. "Instead of recycling our excess food, we should be redirecting as much as we can to populations that need it."

What the average person can do

The USDA offers a guide to food date labeling. It's worth noting that with the exception of infant formula, "food date labels are not indicators of food safety and are not required by federal law. Manufacturers provide dating to help consumers and retailers decide when food is of peak quality."

The agency also offers tips for what ordinary consumers can do to cut back on food waste and the problems it creates:

• Plan ahead. Don't buy more than you need or will use.
• Serve smart. Do portion control, so you don't serve more than you can or should consume.
• Love your leftovers. Save them, mark the date and use them within a couple of days or freeze them.
• Compost, don't trash. Compost can feed the soil. Trash puts garbage in the local landfill and adds to emissions.
• Understand date labels. "With the exception of infant formula," the notice reads, "food that is properly handled should still be safe if the date on a food product passes during home storage until spoilage is evident."
• When you buy perishables, consume them within days. Eat them first.
• Freeze leftovers within three or four days if you aren't eating them. Uneaten fruits and vegetables can be frozen and used in stews and smoothies.
• Eating out? Don't order more than you can finish. If you take leftovers home, eat them. At the buffet, take only what you can eat.

The UC Davis study was funded by the National Science Foundation, the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service and the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

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