2.4 Food Sustainability

What is Sustainable Management of Food?

Sustainable Management of Food is an approach that seeks to reduce wasted food and its associated impacts over the entire life cycle, starting with the use of natural resources, manufacturing, sales, consumption, and ending with decisions on recovery or final disposal.

EPA works to promote innovation and highlight the value and efficient management of food as a resource. Through the sustainable management of food, we can conserve resources for future generations, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, help businesses and consumers save money, and provide access to food for those who do not have enough to eat. To build a circular economy for all, EPA seeks to highlight opportunities to use raw materials more efficiently, enable those resources to be used for their highest value, and recover valuable resources from discarded materials in ways that protect human health and help spur new innovation and economic growth.

What is Wasted Food and Where Does it Come From?

• Wasted food is an overarching term to describe food that was not used for its intended purpose and is managed in a variety of ways, such as donation to feed people, creation of animal feed, composting, anaerobic digestion, or disposal in landfills or combustion facilities. Examples include unsold food from retail stores; plate waste, uneaten prepared food, or kitchen trimmings from restaurants, cafeterias, and households; or by-products from food and beverage processing facilities. The term wasted food can be used to refer to both excess food and food waste.
• Excess food (or surplus food) often refers to food that is donated to feed people.
• Food waste often refers to food not ultimately consumed by humans that is discarded or recycled, such as plate waste (i.e., food that has been served but not eaten), spoiled food, or peels and rinds considered inedible. For purposes of Sustainable Development Goal Target 12.3, food waste occurs at the retail, food service, and residential levels and is managed by landfill; controlled combustion; sewer; litter, discards and refuse; co/anaerobic digestion; compost/aerobic digestion; and land application.
• Food loss often refers to unused product from the agricultural sector, such as unharvested crops. For purposes of Sustainable Development Goal Target 12.3, food loss occurs from production up to (and not including) the retail level.

EPA encourages anyone managing wasted food to reference the Wasted Food Scale, which prioritizes actions that can be taken to prevent and divert wasted food from disposal. The most preferred pathways – prevent wasted food, donate and upcycle food – offer the most benefits to the environment, to communities, and to a circular economy.

Why is Sustainable Management of Food Important?

Wasted food is both a growing problem and an untapped opportunity. In 2019 alone, EPA estimates that about 66 million tons of wasted food were generated in the food retail, food service, and residential sectors, and most of this waste (about 60%) was sent to landfills. EPA estimated that in 2018 in the U.S., more food reached landfills and combustion facilities than any other single material in our everyday trash (24 percent of the amount landfilled and 22 percent of the amount combusted with energy recovery). Additionally, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that in 2010, 31 percent or 133 billion pounds of the 430 billion pounds of food available at the retail and consumer levels was not eaten, valued at almost $162 billion.^[1] Globally, the United Nations estimates that approximately one-third of all food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted – 13 percent of food is lost before reaching retail, and 19 percent is wasted from retail to consumer.^2], [3] At the same time, food loss and waste generates 8-10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Each year, the emissions caused by wasted food in the U.S. are greater than the emissions from all domestic flights within the U.S. plus all international flights run by U.S. airlines.^[4]

When food is wasted, so is the opportunity to nourish people. When food is wasted, so are all the resources that went into producing, processing, distributing, and preparing that food.

Taking simple steps in your everyday life can make a difference in addressing this issue. Reducing wasted food is a triple win; it’s good for the environment, for communities, and for the economy.