McKinsey Quarterly 2023 Number 1

An estimated $600 billion worth of food is lost during or just after harvest. Can manufacturers and grocers do anything about it? Definitely— and it will be good for business, people, and the planet.

It’s a dire statistic: 33 to 40 percent of the world’s food is lost or wasted every year. A devastating fact in less desperate times, it takes on even greater urgency today, in light of a looming global food crisis resulting from knock-on effects of the war in Ukraine, the COVID-19 pandemic, and climate change. Already, one in nine people in the world can’t get enough to eat—that’s more than 800 million suffering from hunger. The consequences of food loss and waste will only get worse. (Food loss hap pens at harvest or soon after, while food - waste happens after the food reaches the retailer or consumer. See sidebar, “Is food loss the same as food waste?”) The loss of the food itself is bad enough, but the secondary effects are alarming as well: the water consumption linked to food loss and waste amounts to approximately one-fourth of the world’s freshwater supply. Greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions from food loss and waste constitute 8 percent of the global total, or at least four times those of the aviation industry. To date, most large-scale efforts to under stand and address the problem have - focused on food waste, largely because it’s more visible: people see food being wasted in stores, restaurants, and house holds. But up to half of the food that - doesn’t get eaten by humans—worth an estimated $600 billion—is lost at or near the farm during or just after harvest. Reducing food loss should therefore be treated as a societal and environ mental priority. -

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