From Food Waste to Food Security: Can We Afford to Throw Food Away?

By Madhuri Peiris 

Open your refrigerator at the end of the week, and you will find the evidence. A bunch of coriander gone slimy, half a pumpkin nobody got around to cooking, a container of rice from Sunday that no one trusts anymore. Each item feels too small to matter. Together, they add up to one of the strangest habits of modern life: we spend real money to grow, transport and buy food, and then we throw a surprising amount of it away.

The size of the problem

The United Nations Environment Programme estimated that the world wasted about 1.05 billion tonnes of food in 2022. That is roughly a fifth of all the food available to consumers. The biggest share, around 60 percent, came from households, not from farms or factories. Restaurants, hotels, canteens and retail shops made up most of the rest.

Meanwhile, hundreds of millions of people still go to bed hungry. Wasted food is not only a moral awkwardness. It is a waste of everything that went into making it: farmland, irrigation water, fertiliser, diesel for tractors and trucks, electricity for cold storage, and the labour of farmers who often earn very little. When food ends up rotting in a landfill, it also releases methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Food loss and waste is widely estimated to account for somewhere between 8 and 10 percent of global emissions. If it were a country, it would be one of the largest polluters on the planet.

What it costs at home

In our households, wasted food is simply money in the bin. Prices of vegetables, rice, dairy, and protein have climbed in many places, and families are stretching their budgets harder than before. Yet the cheapest saving available is often the food you already bought.

There are no permanent fixtures. But we can try out a short meal plan before we shop, even just four or five dinners for the week, and check the fridge and pantry before leaving the house. Buy what the plan needs, not what looks tempting. Once home, store food in a way that gives it a fighting chance. Keep leaves wrapped in a damp cloth, keep herbs upright in a glass of water, and store onions and potatoes in a cool, dark, separate place, because they spoil each other. Move older items to the front so they get eaten first. Freeze bread, cooked rice portions, and overripe bananas before they turn.

Learn the difference between “best before” and “use by.” The first is about quality, the second about safety. Many people throw out perfectly good food because of a misunderstanding about a date on the packet. 

And cook with leftovers on purpose. Yesterday’s curry becomes a filling for rotti. Stale bread becomes toast crumbs or pudding. Vegetable peels and stalks make a decent stock. A family that wastes less food can easily save a meaningful amount every month without eating any worse.

Markets, hotels and restaurants

Apart from the kitchen, waste follows different patterns. At wholesale and retail markets, produce is lost to heat, rough handling, poor packaging and slow transport. A tomato that bruises on a long bumpy ride is often sold cheaply or dumped before it reaches a shopper. Better crates, shaded stalls, simple cold storage and faster routes from farm to market can cut those losses sharply. Vendors who discount slightly tired produce at the end of the day, rather than throwing it out, recover some income and give buyers a bargain.

Hotels and restaurants face a harder balance. Buffets are the classic offender, because guests pile their plates high and abandon what they cannot finish, while kitchens prepare extra to avoid ever running out. Some venues now measure what goes into the bin, and the results are often a shock. Once staff can see which dishes are discarded most, they can adjust portion sizes, cook in smaller batches through the service, and design menus around ingredients that overlap. Many hotels that track waste report lower food costs within a few months, which is the kind of result that gets a manager’s attention.

Donation and composting

When surplus food is still safe, the best option is to feed people. Community kitchens, charities and food banks can redirect meals that would otherwise be wasted, but donation works best when it is organised. That means clear handling rules, quick pickup, and a simple understanding of who is responsible if something goes wrong. Fear of legal trouble stops many businesses from giving, so sensible protections for good faith donors matter.

What cannot be eaten should still not go to waste. Composting turns scraps, peels, and spoiled leftovers into soil that feeds gardens instead of encouraging methane production. A simple bin in a backyard, a community compost site, or a local farmer who collects food scraps for animal feed or fertiliser can close the loop.

Why policy and business should care

This is not a personal project. Governments can set waste reduction targets, support cold chain investment, standardise date labels and encourage composting. Businesses that cut waste cut their costs, and investors increasingly look at the environmental record of food companies.

So, can we afford to throw food away? The simple answer is no. We pay for it at the till, again in resources, and again in the damage to our climate. The good news is that the solution begins in a very ordinary place. So the next time you open the fridge, look carefully before you toss anything out.