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Estimating and Addressing America's Food Losses
Contacts: Linda Scott Kantor, Kathryn Lipton,
Alden
Manchester, or Victor Oliveira
Food Losses Occur Throughout the Food System
Some food losses occur at the farm and farm-to-retail level. . .
Farm and post-harvest
- Preharvest losses due to severe weather, disease, and predation.
- Harvest losses attributed to mechanization, production practices, and decisions.
- Storage, insects, mold, deterioration, shrinkage, and spoilage.
Processing and wholesaling
- Removal of inedible portions--bones, blood, peels, pits, etc.
- Discard of substandard products (bruised fruit, etc.).
- Shrinkage in storage.
- Poor handling or package failure.
- Transportation losses.
ERS estimates only losses by retailers, consumer, foodservice. . .
Retail
- 5.4 billion pounds of food were lost at the retail level in 1995.
- Retail losses were less than 2 percent of edible food supplies.
- Dairy products and fresh fruits and vegetables accounted for half of retail losses.
Consumer and foodservice
- 91 billion pounds of food were lost by consumers and foodservice in 1995.
- Foodservice and consumer losses accounted for 26 percent of edible food supplies.
- Fresh fruits and vegetables accounted for nearly 20 percent of consumer and foodservice losses.
Note: Foodservice and consumer losses include storage, preparation, and plate waste at the household and food service levels.
This report is an advance release of an article to appear in FoodReview, Vol. 20, No. 1, Jan-Apr, 1997. FoodReview is published by the Economic Research Service, USDA. To order this or other ERS reports and periodicals, visit the ERS-NASS Sales Desk.
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Updated: August 29, 1997
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