This report summarises food waste research conducted by the Sustainable Consumption Institute (SCI), University of Manchester, and its implications for a transition towards a sustainable food system.

Denmark, has according to a new government report (only available in Danish) managed to reduce food waste by 25% in 5 years, measured in amount (kg) per consumer.  Consumer information campaigns are considered to be one of the major factors for the success.

The average U.S. family spends $2,225 every year on food they don't eat.  American consumers are collectively responsible for more wasted food than farmers, grocery stores, or any other part of the food-supply chain. This  new book, entitled Waste-Free Kitchen Handbook provides accessible information about the state of the problem as well as a set of tips and techniques to eanble people to reduce the amount of waste they produce.

Surveys show that 300 kg of edible food is wasted per person each year in Switzerland. This paper focuses on one of the foods that are wasted – potatoes – and assesses the quantity and quality of potato losses along the entire supply chain.  It finds that on the way from field to fork, more than half of the potato harvest is lost.

This paper discusses the use of food waste as a feed source for pigs reared for pork in the EU, the current policy landscape and implications for agricultural land use, profits and pork production of using waste as feed.  The authors find that re-legalising the use of food waste as pig feed in the EU could spare 1.8 million hectares of global agricultural land, improve profitability for many farmers, and produce pork of high quality.

This FAO brief on food waste discusses the carbon footprint of global food waste and so called embedded emissions in avoidable food waste. In order to measure the avoidable emissions it is necessary to know how much of what kind of food is wasted and where.

This report by the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future highlights the need to reduce livestock farming and food waste if climate change is to be addressed, and the relative absence of these important mitigation strategies from recent climate talks (e.g. COP21 in Paris).

The FAO announce the launch of their new initiative: The Technical Platform on the Measurement and Reduction of Food Loss and Waste.

Some of Britain’s leading supermarkets have made a pledge to reduce food and drink waste by a fifth by 2025 according to this article in The Guardian.