How to Reduce Food Waste
How to Reduce Food Waste
Food waste occurs throughout the food system, from farms and supply chains to grocery stores, restaurants, institutions, and individual homes. Edible food may be discarded because too much was purchased or prepared, storage conditions were unsuitable, package dates were misunderstood, or leftovers were forgotten. Food can also be lost during harvesting, processing, transportation, and retail distribution.
Reducing food waste saves money, conserves water and energy, protects agricultural land, supports food security, and limits greenhouse-gas emissions. The most effective approach is to prevent surplus food from being created. When prevention is not possible, edible food can be donated, redistributed, preserved, or upcycled. Unavoidable scraps can be composted, used as animal feed where permitted, or processed through anaerobic digestion.
Plan Meals and Shop Carefully
Meal planning is one of the simplest ways to prevent household food waste. Before shopping, inspect the refrigerator, freezer, and pantry to identify food that is already available. Build meals around ingredients that need to be used soon and prepare a shopping list based on realistic household needs.
A flexible meal plan is often more practical than assigning a specific dish to every day. Ingredients can be selected for use in several meals, while one or more days can be reserved for leftovers or “use-it-up” dishes. Soups, curries, casseroles, stir-fries, omelets, salads, smoothies, and pasta dishes can accommodate small amounts of miscellaneous food.
Shoppers can reduce waste by avoiding impulse purchases, buying realistic quantities, and considering how quickly perishable products will be consumed. Bulk purchases and promotional offers do not save money if part of the food is eventually discarded. Fresh, frozen, canned, dried, and shelf-stable foods can be combined to create a healthy and flexible food supply.
Cosmetically imperfect fruits and vegetables are often as edible and nutritious as conventionally shaped produce. Purchasing imperfect produce can reduce losses caused by retail and consumer appearance standards.
Store Food to Maintain Freshness and Safety
Proper storage extends the useful life of food. Refrigerators should generally be maintained at 40°F (4°C) or below. A refrigerator thermometer can help confirm that food is being kept at a safe and consistent temperature.
Perishable food should be refrigerated promptly and stored in suitable containers. Older products can be placed in front of newer purchases so they are used first. Regular refrigerator, freezer, and pantry inventories help prevent food from being forgotten.
Fruits and vegetables have different storage requirements. Some need refrigeration, while others maintain better quality at room temperature. Humidity, ventilation, packaging, and exposure to ethylene-producing fruits can affect how quickly produce deteriorates. Understanding these differences can prevent premature spoilage.
Dry pantry foods should be kept in a cool, dark, and dry location. Packages should be protected from moisture and pests, labeled when necessary, and rotated through a first-in, first-out system.
Understand Food Date Labels
Confusion about package dates is a major reason usable food is discarded. Except for certain regulated products such as infant formula, many dates indicate expected quality rather than an automatic safety deadline.
Terms such as “Best if Used By” generally describe the period during which a product is expected to retain peak flavor or quality. Food that has passed a quality date may still be usable if it was stored correctly and shows no evidence of spoilage.
Consumers should consider storage conditions, package integrity, appearance, odor, texture, and established food-safety guidance. Products that appear spoiled, contaminated, moldy, or improperly stored should be discarded. Clearer and more consistent date-label standards can help reduce unnecessary disposal.
Prepare Appropriate Portions
Cooking and serving more food than people can eat creates avoidable waste. Measuring frequently overproduced foods such as rice, pasta, potatoes, and cereal can help households prepare more accurate quantities.
Smaller initial portions can reduce plate waste while allowing people to take second helpings if they remain hungry. Restaurants, schools, hotels, hospitals, and cafeterias can offer flexible portion sizes and monitor which foods are regularly left uneaten.
Serving practices, plate size, dining schedules, menu design, and social expectations can influence how much food people select and discard. Food-waste audits can help institutions determine where portion adjustments are needed.
Use Leftovers and Food Scraps Creatively
Leftovers should be cooled promptly, refrigerated or frozen in labeled containers, and used within recommended storage periods. They can be scheduled as future lunches or dinners instead of being treated as accidental surplus.
Cooked meat can be used in soups, sandwiches, salads, curries, pies, casseroles, and pasta dishes. Surplus rice, potatoes, vegetables, cheese, and herbs can also become ingredients in new meals when handled safely.
Stale bread can be transformed into breadcrumbs, croutons, stuffing, bread pudding, French toast, or soup thickeners. Overripe bananas can be frozen or used in smoothies, pancakes, oatmeal, baked goods, and desserts.
Suitable vegetable stems, leaves, peels, and trimmings can sometimes be incorporated into stocks, sauces, soups, pestos, sautés, and garnishes. Broccoli stems, beet greens, herb stems, and carrot tops are examples of parts that may be edible. Only clean, sound, and safely edible scraps should be used.
Freeze and Preserve Surplus Food
Freezing can preserve food before its quality declines. Food should be divided into useful portions, packaged to limit air exposure, labeled with its contents and date, and frozen promptly. Safe thawing and reheating practices remain important.
Many fruits can be frozen for later use in smoothies, desserts, sauces, and baked dishes. Most vegetables benefit from blanching before freezing because brief heat treatment slows enzymes that damage flavor, color, and texture.
Other preservation methods include drying, pickling, fermenting, and canning. Households should follow current, research-based instructions, especially when canning low-acid foods. Improper home canning can cause botulism and other serious foodborne illnesses.
Seasonal surpluses such as tomatoes, apples, and berries can be frozen, dried, canned, or prepared as sauces and spreads. Safe preservation increases the time available to use abundant foods.
Donate and Redistribute Edible Surplus
Safe surplus food can be redirected to food banks, community refrigerators, food-rescue organizations, nonprofit agencies, and other hunger-relief programs. Farms may also work with gleaning organizations to recover marketable crops that would otherwise remain unharvested.
Restaurants, stores, schools, universities, hotels, manufacturers, and institutional kitchens can establish donation partnerships before surplus food is generated. Successful programs require attention to food safety, temperature control, storage, packaging, transportation, scheduling, and the needs of recipient organizations.
Federal Good Samaritan protections may reduce liability concerns for qualifying donations made in good faith. Donors should still follow applicable food-safety requirements and coordinate directly with recipient organizations.
Digital marketplaces and food-sharing applications can also connect businesses and households with people who can use surplus food. Marking down products as they approach the end of their marketable period can encourage timely sales and reduce retail disposal.
Compost Unavoidable Food Scraps
Prevention and food donation should generally take priority over composting because they preserve more of the resources used to produce food. However, composting is a valuable option for unavoidable and inedible scraps.
Home composting can convert fruit and vegetable scraps, coffee grounds, tea leaves, eggshells, and compatible yard materials into a soil amendment. Successful composting requires an appropriate balance of carbon-rich and nitrogen-rich materials, moisture, oxygen, and time.
Vermicomposting uses worms to process selected food scraps and can be useful in homes without space for a conventional outdoor compost pile. Community composting and municipal collection programs can provide options for people who cannot compost at home.
Keeping food out of landfills reduces methane emissions produced when organic material decomposes without sufficient oxygen. Compost can return nutrients and organic matter to soil, improving soil structure and water retention.
Reduce Waste in Restaurants, Stores, and Institutions
Food businesses can prevent waste through better forecasting, purchasing, inventory control, stock rotation, menu planning, food preparation, and portion management. Measuring discarded food helps identify what is being wasted, when it is discarded, and how much it costs.
Retailers can use improved inventory systems, dynamic pricing, redesigned promotions, imperfect-produce programs, donation partnerships, and upcycled products. Restaurants and commercial kitchens can train staff, adjust menus, offer portion choices, and track preparation and plate waste.
Schools and universities can conduct cafeteria audits, improve scheduling, use share tables, offer appropriate portions, recover surplus food, and involve students in prevention programs. Trayless dining may discourage diners from selecting more food than they can consume.
Hotels can improve buffet management and demand forecasting, while healthcare facilities can coordinate meal production with patient needs. Digital scales, cameras, and analytical systems can help large kitchens recognize recurring waste patterns.
Prevent Food Loss on Farms and Across Supply Chains
Food may be lost before it reaches consumers because of weather, crop damage, labor shortages, harvesting costs, market prices, buyer specifications, inadequate storage, transportation delays, or insufficient demand.
Improved harvesting methods, temperature management, packaging, storage, transportation, processing, and market coordination can reduce postharvest losses. Sustainable cold chains are especially important for fruits, vegetables, dairy products, meat, and fish.
Grain losses can be reduced through timely drying, moisture control, pest management, and improved storage. Hermetic bags and containers can help protect crops from insects and humidity. Milk losses can be limited through hygienic collection, rapid cooling, clean containers, testing, and reliable processing.
Better handling, icing, cold storage, transportation, and by-product utilization can reduce fish loss and waste. Investments in infrastructure, market information, financing, farmer organizations, and processing facilities are particularly important in regions with limited supply-chain capacity.
Measure Food Waste and Track Progress
Food-waste measurement helps households, businesses, institutions, cities, and countries determine what is being discarded and why. Measurement methods include waste diaries, kitchen caddies, direct weighing, composition studies, surveys, digital tracking systems, and cafeteria audits.
Organizations can use a “target, measure, act” approach. This involves setting a reduction target, measuring food waste consistently, implementing solutions for the largest waste streams, and monitoring results over time.
Common accounting standards make it easier to compare results among companies, communities, and countries. Measurement can also reveal financial savings, environmental benefits, operational problems, and opportunities for food recovery.
Upcycle Food and Support Circular Uses
Upcycling turns suitable ingredients and processing by-products into new products for human consumption. Fruit and vegetable peels, pomace, seeds, stems, whey, spent grain, and other materials may contain fiber, protein, oils, pectin, natural colors, or other useful components.
Brewers’ spent grain can potentially be incorporated into food, animal feed, fermentation processes, and biomaterials. Whey from cheesemaking can become beverages, protein concentrates, lactose products, fermentation inputs, or feed.
Food-processing residues may also be converted into fuels, fertilizers, chemicals, materials, or compost. Spent coffee grounds and citrus peels have potential applications in mushroom production, oils, renewable energy, soil products, and biomaterials.
Food residuals may be used as animal feed when handling practices comply with applicable food-safety and animal-health regulations. Anaerobic digestion can convert unavoidable organic waste into biogas and digestate after prevention, redistribution, and other higher-priority uses have been considered.
Education, Community Action, and Public Policy
Public education can help people connect food waste with household costs, hunger, agriculture, water use, climate change, and environmental protection. Schools can involve students in waste audits, food-storage lessons, creative cooking, food rescue, and composting projects.
Local governments can support prevention campaigns, food-rescue infrastructure, organics collection, procurement reforms, measurement programs, and clearer regulations. Regional partnerships allow governments and food businesses to share data and test solutions.
National and international strategies promote progress toward Sustainable Development Goal 12.3, which calls for reducing food waste and food loss. Important policy areas include standardized date labels, donation protections, prevention funding, recycling infrastructure, research, data collection, and consumer education.
Household behavior is shaped by schedules, family preferences, cultural expectations, food-safety concerns, emotions, and established routines. Effective campaigns should therefore offer practical, flexible, and nonjudgmental solutions rather than relying only on general appeals to avoid waste.
Conclusion
Reducing food waste requires action throughout the food system. Households can make a substantial difference by planning meals, shopping carefully, storing food correctly, understanding date labels, preparing suitable portions, using leftovers, and preserving surplus ingredients.
Businesses and institutions can improve forecasting, inventory management, menu design, measurement, food donation, and employee training. Farms and supply chains can reduce losses through better harvesting, storage, refrigeration, transportation, processing, and market coordination.
The preferred order of action is to prevent excess food first, redistribute safe edible surplus to people, use appropriate residuals for animals or upcycling, and compost or digest unavoidable organic material. Coordinated action can save money, improve food security, conserve natural resources, and reduce the environmental impact of producing food that is never eaten.
Household Food-Waste Reduction
Top 5 Ways to Cut Down on Food Waste
| UN Environment Programme | UNEP | 2019
UNEP encourages consumers to shop thoughtfully, buy imperfect produce, understand date labels, use leftovers, and support food-rescue and redistribution programs.
How to Reduce Your Food Waste
| Food and Agriculture Organization | FAO | No date
Plan meals, check existing supplies before shopping, understand date labels, store food correctly, serve reasonable portions, reuse leftovers, and compost unavoidable scraps.
Preventing Wasted Food at Home
| U.S. Environmental Protection Agency | EPA | No date
Households can prevent waste by planning purchases, storing perishables properly, freezing surplus food, serving smaller portions, and finding creative uses for leftovers.
Food Loss and Waste: Information for Consumers
| U.S. Department of Agriculture | USDA | No date
USDA recommends checking the refrigerator before shopping, preparing a weekly menu, understanding food dates, freezing food promptly, and donating safe surplus products.
Food Waste FAQs
| U.S. Department of Agriculture | USDA | No date
This overview explains what food waste is, why it matters, how it is measured, and how consumers and organizations can support the national reduction goal.
29 Smart and Easy Tips to Reduce Food Waste
| Natural Resources Defense Council | NRDC | No date
Practical suggestions include shopping with a list, storing food where it remains visible, freezing ingredients, reviving wilted produce, and scheduling leftover meals.
Reducing Food Waste at Home
| World Wildlife Fund | WWF | No date
Families can reduce waste by making realistic meal plans, buying only what they need, serving sensible portions, saving leftovers, and treating imperfect produce as usable food.
Food Waste: The Facts, Causes, and Solutions
| World Wildlife Fund | WWF | No date
Preventing food waste conserves farmland, water, energy, and other resources while limiting the greenhouse-gas emissions associated with production and disposal.
Stop Food Loss and Waste: For the People, for the Planet
| UN Environment Programme | UNEP | No date
Reducing avoidable waste can improve food security, save household money, conserve natural resources, and decrease the environmental burden of the global food system.
A Guide to Reducing Household Food Waste
| University of Minnesota Extension | University of Minnesota | No date
Careful planning, flexible recipes, correct storage, realistic portions, and regular refrigerator inventories help households use food before it spoils.
Meal Planning and Smarter Shopping
Plan Your Weekly Meals
| Love Food Hate Waste | WRAP | No date
A flexible weekly meal plan helps shoppers account for busy days, use ingredients across several dishes, schedule leftovers, and avoid unnecessary purchases.
Write a Shopping List
| Love Food Hate Waste | WRAP | No date
Checking cupboards, refrigerators, and freezers before writing a list reduces duplicate purchases and makes it easier to buy realistic quantities.
Make Food Go Further
| Love Food Hate Waste | WRAP | No date
Simple habits involving planning, portions, storage, freezing, and leftovers help people get more meals from the food they already purchase.
Shop Smart to Reduce Food Waste
| U.S. Food and Drug Administration | FDA | No date
Consumers should make lists, avoid impulse buying, assess food quality carefully, store purchases promptly, and distinguish spoiled food from food that has merely passed a quality date.
Reducing Food Waste and Saving Money
| Utah State University Extension | Utah State University | No date
Planning meals around food already at home and buying quantities that match household needs can lower grocery costs and reduce spoilage.
Smart Shopping for Fruits and Vegetables
| U.S. Department of Agriculture | MyPlate | No date
Choosing a mixture of fresh, frozen, canned, and dried foods can make healthy meal planning more flexible and reduce dependence on quickly perishable ingredients.
Food Waste Prevention Tips
| Environment and Climate Change Canada | Government of Canada | No date
Household inventories, realistic shopping plans, correct storage, and better use of leftovers can prevent food from becoming avoidable waste.
Buy What You Need
| Stop Food Waste | Environmental Protection Agency Ireland | No date
Reviewing supplies and estimating actual household demand before shopping helps prevent overbuying, particularly with short-lived foods such as produce and bread.
Planning Meals to Reduce Waste
| Food Standards Agency | UK Food Standards Agency | No date
Coordinating meal plans with food-safety storage guidance helps households use refrigerated ingredients while they remain safe and at their best quality.
Reducing Waste Through Flexible Meal Planning
| Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health | Harvard University | No date
Preparing components that can be combined into different meals makes it easier to adjust plans and use perishable ingredients before they deteriorate.
Food Storage and Freshness
FoodKeeper App
| FoodSafety.gov | U.S. Government | No date
The FoodKeeper resource provides storage timelines for many foods, helping consumers judge when to refrigerate, freeze, cook, or discard products.
Food Product Dating
| USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service | USDA | No date
Except for infant formula, most package dates indicate product quality rather than a universal safety deadline, so proper handling and signs of spoilage also matter.
Refrigeration and Food Safety
| USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service | USDA | No date
Maintaining a refrigerator at 40°F or below, covering food, and chilling perishables promptly extends usability while controlling harmful bacterial growth.
Cold Food Storage Chart
| FoodSafety.gov | U.S. Government | No date
This chart provides refrigerator and freezer storage periods for meat, poultry, seafood, eggs, leftovers, and other foods commonly wasted through uncertainty.
Keep Fruits and Vegetables Fresher Longer
| University of California Cooperative Extension | UC Agriculture and Natural Resources | No date
Produce lasts longer when consumers understand which items need refrigeration, ventilation, higher humidity, or separation from ethylene-producing fruits.
A-Z Food Storage
| Love Food Hate Waste | WRAP | No date
The storage directory explains how to keep common ingredients fresh, whether they can be frozen, and how leftovers or surplus portions can be reused.
Save Food by Organizing the Refrigerator
| U.S. Food and Drug Administration | FDA | No date
Correct refrigerator temperatures, prompt chilling, careful placement, and routine checks improve food safety while reducing avoidable spoilage.
Storing Fresh Produce
| University of Minnesota Extension | University of Minnesota | No date
Different fruits and vegetables require different combinations of temperature, humidity, airflow, and packaging to maintain freshness after purchase.
Pantry Food Storage
| Utah State University Extension | Utah State University | No date
Keeping shelf-stable food in a cool, dry, dark place and rotating older packages forward helps preserve quality and prevent forgotten products.
How to Store Food Safely
| Food Standards Agency | UK Food Standards Agency | No date
Safe storage includes cooling cooked food promptly, using sealed containers, maintaining correct refrigerator temperatures, and consuming refrigerated leftovers within recommended periods.
Freezing and Preserving Food
Freezing and Food Safety
| USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service | USDA | No date
Freezing preserves food for extended periods, although quality depends on suitable packaging, freezer temperature, initial freshness, and safe thawing practices.
Freezing Fruits
| National Center for Home Food Preservation | University of Georgia | No date
Detailed preparation methods help households freeze surplus fruit safely while retaining useful flavor, color, texture, and nutritional value.
Freezing Vegetables
| National Center for Home Food Preservation | University of Georgia | No date
Most vegetables benefit from brief blanching before freezing because the process slows enzymes that otherwise damage flavor, color, and texture.
Preserving Food at Home
| National Center for Home Food Preservation | University of Georgia | No date
Research-based instructions for freezing, canning, drying, fermenting, curing, and pickling help households preserve seasonal abundance safely.
How to Freeze Food
| Love Food Hate Waste | WRAP | No date
Labeling, portioning, cooling, and freezing surplus ingredients before their quality declines makes future meal preparation easier and prevents disposal.
Freezing Basics
| University of Minnesota Extension | University of Minnesota | No date
Proper containers, rapid freezing, careful preparation, and suitable thawing methods protect frozen food from quality loss and freezer burn.
Drying Food at Home
| National Center for Home Food Preservation | University of Georgia | No date
Dehydration can preserve fruits, vegetables, herbs, and some prepared foods by lowering moisture to levels that limit microbial growth.
Pickling Surplus Produce
| National Center for Home Food Preservation | University of Georgia | No date
Tested pickling procedures convert surplus vegetables and fruits into longer-lasting foods while maintaining the acidity needed for safe preservation.
Fermenting Vegetables
| University of Minnesota Extension | University of Minnesota | No date
Controlled salt fermentation can turn excess cabbage and other suitable produce into longer-lasting foods, provided tested preparation and storage methods are followed.
Safely Canning Food
| Centers for Disease Control and Prevention | CDC | No date
Home canning can preserve seasonal food, but low-acid foods require pressure canning and all products should be prepared using current tested recipes.
Leftovers and Creative Cooking
Love Your Leftovers
| Love Food Hate Waste | WRAP | No date
Cooling, labeling, refrigerating, or freezing leftovers promptly allows them to become planned lunches, dinners, snacks, or ingredients rather than waste.
Recipes for Leftovers
| Love Food Hate Waste | WRAP | No date
A searchable recipe collection helps cooks transform leftover vegetables, bread, rice, meat, dairy products, and other common surplus ingredients into new meals.
How to Safely Reheat Leftovers
| USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service | USDA | No date
Cooked food should be chilled promptly, stored safely, and reheated thoroughly so leftover meals can be enjoyed without increasing foodborne-illness risks.
Use-It-Up Meals
| Stop Food Waste | Environmental Protection Agency Ireland | No date
Soups, stir-fries, curries, omelets, casseroles, and smoothies provide flexible ways to combine small quantities of food approaching the end of its useful life.
Cooking From the Pantry
| U.S. Department of Agriculture | MyPlate Kitchen | No date
Searchable recipes based on common ingredients help households build meals around food already in refrigerators, freezers, and cupboards.
Turn Stale Bread Into Useful Food
| BBC Good Food Team | BBC Good Food | No date
Stale bread can become breadcrumbs, croutons, bread pudding, French toast, stuffing, thickened soups, and other dishes instead of being thrown away.
Creative Uses for Vegetable Scraps
| Penn State Extension | Pennsylvania State University | No date
Clean vegetable trimmings can sometimes be used in stocks, sauces, garnishes, or compost, depending on their condition and whether the parts are edible.
Root-to-Stem Cooking
| James Beard Foundation | James Beard Foundation | No date
Root-to-stem cooking expands the usable portion of vegetables by incorporating suitable leaves, stalks, peels, seeds, and roots into thoughtfully prepared dishes.
Portion Control and Date Labels
Serving Smaller Portions
| UN Environment Programme | UNEP | 2024
Serving manageable initial portions while allowing second helpings can reduce plate waste in households, cafeterias, restaurants, and institutional dining facilities.
Food Date Labeling and Food Waste
| U.S. Government Accountability Office | GAO | 2019
Federal reviewers found that varied date-label language can confuse consumers and identified education and standardization as potential waste-reduction measures.
The Dating Game: How Confusing Food Date Labels Lead to Food Waste
| Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic and NRDC | Harvard Law School | 2013
The report examines inconsistent date-label practices and recommends clearer, more standardized systems to reduce consumer confusion and premature disposal.
Perfect Portions
| Love Food Hate Waste | WRAP | No date
Measuring frequently overproduced foods such as rice, pasta, potatoes, and cereal helps cooks prepare amounts that more closely match household appetites.
Confusion Over Date Labels
| U.S. Food and Drug Administration | FDA | No date
Standardized quality-based wording can help consumers avoid discarding wholesome packaged food merely because a voluntary date has passed.
Date Labeling and Food Waste
Consistent date-label terminology and consumer education are important interventions because misunderstanding package dates causes substantial avoidable household waste.
Portion Control in Food Service
Food-service businesses can reduce plate waste by reviewing portion sizes, offering flexible choices, training staff, and monitoring which menu items are routinely uneaten.
Reducing Plate Waste in Schools
| USDA Food and Nutrition Service | USDA | No date
Schools can combine menu planning, student engagement, appropriate scheduling, share tables, food donation, and waste audits to keep edible food from being discarded.
Smaller Plates and Food Waste
| World Resources Institute | WRI | No date
Behavioral changes in serving environments, including plate design, portion options, prompts, and social norms, can influence how much food people take and leave uneaten.
Composting and Managing Scraps
Wasted Food Scale
| U.S. Environmental Protection Agency | EPA | 2026
EPA prioritizes prevention, donation, and upcycling above animal feed, composting, anaerobic digestion, landfilling, incineration, or sending discarded food down drains.
Why Food Waste in Landfills Matters
| U.S. Environmental Protection Agency | EPA | 2023
Landfilled food decomposes without oxygen and produces methane, reinforcing the environmental value of prevention, donation, composting, and other diversion methods.
Composting at Home
| U.S. Environmental Protection Agency | EPA | No date
Home composting turns unavoidable fruit, vegetable, coffee, tea, eggshell, and yard scraps into a soil amendment instead of sending them to a landfill.
Community Composting
| U.S. Environmental Protection Agency | EPA | No date
Community-scale systems can collect local organic material, produce compost, build soil health, and create educational and economic opportunities close to where waste originates.
Composting Food Scraps in Your Community
| U.S. Environmental Protection Agency | EPA | No date
This toolkit helps communities research their audiences, design outreach campaigns, remove participation barriers, and encourage proper food-scrap separation.
Vermicomposting
| University of Minnesota Extension | University of Minnesota | No date
Worm bins can process selected household food scraps indoors when moisture, bedding, temperature, feeding rate, and ventilation are properly managed.
Composting Basics
| Natural Resources Conservation Service | USDA | No date
Composting combines carbon-rich and nitrogen-rich materials with moisture, oxygen, and time to create stable organic matter useful for improving soil.
Composting Food Waste
| Penn State Extension | Pennsylvania State University | No date
Successful backyard composting depends on appropriate materials, particle size, moisture, oxygen, pile volume, and periodic turning or mixing.
Composting With Worms
| Oregon State University Extension | Oregon State University | No date
Red worms can convert suitable kitchen scraps into nutrient-rich castings, making vermicomposting useful for homes without space for outdoor piles.
Food Donation and Recovery
Food Recovery Hierarchy and Donation
| U.S. Environmental Protection Agency | EPA | 2025
Preventing excess food remains the first priority, but safe food that cannot be avoided should be directed to people before lower-value management pathways.
Donate Food
| U.S. Environmental Protection Agency | EPA | No date
Businesses, institutions, and households can redirect safe surplus food to hunger-relief organizations, provided they coordinate needs, handling, transportation, and storage.
Good Samaritan Food Donation Act
| U.S. Department of Agriculture | USDA | No date
Federal protections can reduce liability concerns for qualifying good-faith donations of apparently wholesome food to nonprofit organizations serving people in need.
Food Recovery Network
| Food Recovery Network | Food Recovery Network | No date
Student-led chapters and partner organizations recover surplus prepared food from campuses and businesses and deliver it to hunger-relief agencies.
Food Rescue Locator
| Sustainable America | Sustainable America | No date
A searchable locator helps food businesses and individuals identify nearby organizations that may accept or redistribute surplus edible food.
Community Fridges and Food Sharing
Community refrigerators provide local spaces where businesses and residents can share suitable surplus food while following established safety and management rules.
Feeding America Food Rescue
| Feeding America | Feeding America | No date
Food banks work with retailers, farms, manufacturers, and restaurants to recover surplus products and distribute them through community hunger-relief networks.
Food Donation Connection
| Food Donation Connection | Food Donation Connection | No date
Donation-coordination services connect restaurants and food-service businesses with approved nonprofit agencies that can receive and distribute prepared surplus food.
Recovering Excess Farm Produce
| National Gleaning Project | Association of Gleaning Organizations | No date
Gleaning groups harvest or collect marketable crops that would otherwise remain in fields and distribute the recovered produce through community organizations.
Food Recovery in Schools
| USDA Food and Nutrition Service | USDA | No date
Schools can use share tables, donation arrangements, careful production planning, and student education to recover safe food and reduce cafeteria disposal.
Restaurants, Retailers, and Institutions
Why Businesses Should Measure Food Waste
| Champions 12.3 | World Resources Institute | 2017
Business case studies indicate that measuring waste and investing in prevention can produce financial savings alongside environmental and social benefits.
Food: Too Good to Waste Toolkit
| U.S. Environmental Protection Agency | EPA | No date
The toolkit gives communities a structured method for measuring household waste, testing prevention behaviors, communicating results, and encouraging lasting changes.
Guardians of Grub
Hospitality businesses can measure discarded food, calculate its cost, improve purchasing and preparation, train staff, and develop menus that use ingredients efficiently.
Restaurant Food-Waste Reduction
Restaurants can reduce waste through demand forecasting, inventory control, smaller menus, portion choices, staff engagement, donation, and careful tracking of kitchen and plate waste.
Retail Food-Waste Solutions
Retailers can improve ordering, use dynamic pricing, redesign promotions, market imperfect produce, donate surplus inventory, and upcycle suitable food into new products.
Hotel Kitchen: Fighting Food Waste
| World Wildlife Fund and American Hotel & Lodging Association | Hotel Kitchen | No date
Hotels can measure kitchen waste, engage chefs and employees, improve buffet management, adjust purchasing, and donate safe surplus meals.
Reducing Wasted Food at Colleges and Universities
| U.S. Environmental Protection Agency | EPA | No date
Campus dining programs can audit waste, use trayless dining, adjust portions, forecast demand, recover surplus food, and educate students about prevention.
School Cafeteria Waste Audits
| USDA Team Nutrition | USDA | No date
Cafeteria waste audits allow students and administrators to identify commonly discarded items and evaluate changes in menus, schedules, portions, and education.
Reducing Food Waste in Healthcare
| Practice Greenhealth | Practice Greenhealth | No date
Healthcare facilities can improve forecasting, track production and plate waste, offer flexible portions, donate appropriate surplus food, and compost unavoidable scraps.
Reducing Waste in Commercial Kitchens
| U.S. Environmental Protection Agency | EPA | No date
Measurement tools and calculators help food-service operators identify where waste occurs, estimate costs, establish baselines, and compare prevention and diversion options.
Policy, Climate, and Systemwide Solutions
National Strategy for Reducing Food Loss and Waste and Recycling Organics
| USDA, EPA, and FDA | U.S. Government | 2024
The national strategy coordinates government action on prevention, organics recycling, policy, research, education, food rescue, and progress toward cutting food waste in half by 2030.
UNEP Food Waste Index Report 2024
| UN Environment Programme | UNEP | 2024
The report provides updated estimates, measurement guidance, and policy recommendations for reducing household, retail, and food-service waste under Sustainable Development Goal 12.3.
From Field to Bin: Environmental Impacts of U.S. Food Waste Management
| U.S. Environmental Protection Agency | EPA | 2023
EPA compares common management pathways and concludes that preventing food waste generally offers greater environmental benefits than managing it after it is generated.
Tackling Food Loss and Waste: A Triple-Win Opportunity
| Food and Agriculture Organization and UNEP | FAO | 2022
Preventing food loss and waste can simultaneously improve food security, conserve natural resources, and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, making it a central sustainable-development strategy.
Roadmap to 2030
ReFED identifies priority solutions, financing needs, policy changes, innovation opportunities, and stakeholder actions required to cut U.S. food waste substantially.
A Roadmap to Reduce U.S. Food Waste
The roadmap evaluates prevention, recovery, and recycling solutions according to their economic value, diversion potential, environmental benefits, and implementation requirements.
Global Food Losses and Food Waste
| Jenny Gustavsson and others | FAO | 2011
This influential assessment examines the scale and causes of food loss and waste across regions and stages of the supply chain.
Food Loss and Waste Protocol
| World Resources Institute and partners | FLW Protocol | No date
A common accounting standard helps countries, cities, companies, and institutions measure where food is lost or wasted and monitor reduction initiatives consistently.
Food Loss and Waste: A Global Challenge
| World Bank | World Bank | No date
Reducing loss and waste requires improvements in infrastructure, markets, technology, financing, consumer behavior, regulation, and coordination throughout food supply chains.
Household Habits and Behavior
Household Food-Waste Survey Project
| Yu Meng | Cooperative Extension | 2024
Focus groups identified planning, shopping, flexible cooking, food storage, preservation, sharing, and composting as important subjects for culturally appropriate household education.
Evaluation of a Community-Based Food-Waste Campaign
| Yiheng Shu and others | Resources, Conservation and Recycling | 2023
A community campaign combining food-storage education with composting achieved measurable changes, illustrating the value of pairing prevention messages with practical waste-management options.
A Food-Waste Reduction Intervention Among Households
| Colin Wharton and others | Resources, Conservation and Recycling | 2021
Researchers examined household practices involving shopping, leftovers, date labels, food storage, and acceptance of cosmetically imperfect food to identify promising waste-reduction interventions.
Food-Waste Behaviors in U.S. Households
| Brian Roe and others | PLOS ONE | 2020
Survey findings connect household waste with attitudes, demographic characteristics, shopping routines, food-management skills, and perceived inconvenience.
The Psychology of Food Waste
Researchers explain how routines, perceptions, emotions, and household circumstances affect food-disposal decisions and why nonjudgmental messages may encourage change.
The Food-Waste Hierarchy as a Framework for Management
| Eva Eriksson and Mattias Spångberg | Journal of Cleaner Production | 2017
The study evaluates food-waste options and reinforces the principle that preventing edible waste normally produces greater benefits than treating it after disposal.
Motivations and Barriers to Reducing Household Food Waste
| Stephanie Visschers and others | Resources, Conservation and Recycling | 2016
People may value waste reduction while still discarding food because of time pressure, family preferences, overprovisioning, safety concerns, and weak planning habits.
Consumer-Related Food Waste: Causes and Potential for Action
| Marianne Thyberg and David Tonjes | Sustainability | 2015
Household waste is influenced by food prices, shopping behavior, packaging, cultural expectations, storage knowledge, portion sizes, and attitudes toward leftovers.
Why Consumers Waste Food
| Ilyukhin Abeliotis and others | International Journal of Consumer Studies | 2014
Consumer waste emerges from interacting habits involving purchasing, cooking, serving, storage, time constraints, household preferences, and uncertainty about food safety.
Planning Meals and Reducing Household Food Waste
| Graham Evans | International Journal of Consumer Studies | 2014
Household routines demonstrate that waste cannot be explained by individual attitudes alone because schedules, social expectations, and family relationships shape food use.
Refrigerator and Pantry Management
A Refrigerator Thermometer Can Help Prevent Waste
| U.S. Food and Drug Administration | FDA | No date
Keeping refrigerators at safe, consistent temperatures protects perishables, slows spoilage, and helps households avoid unnecessary disposal caused by poor temperature control.
Safe Storage of Cooked Food
| Centers for Disease Control and Prevention | CDC | No date
Prompt refrigeration, clean containers, safe temperatures, and careful reheating allow prepared food to remain useful without compromising food safety.
Storing Fruits and Vegetables
| Purdue University Extension | Purdue University | No date
Ingredient-specific guidance helps consumers select, prepare, refrigerate, freeze, preserve, and use fruits and vegetables before quality deteriorates.
Home Food Storage
| Colorado State University Extension | Colorado State University | No date
Recommended pantry, refrigerator, and freezer periods help households maintain quality and safely rotate stored products.
Safe Home Food Storage
| Elizabeth Andress and Judy Harrison | University of Georgia Extension | No date
Storage tables covering numerous foods help consumers determine appropriate locations, packaging methods, temperatures, and approximate keeping periods.
Storing Food for Safety and Quality
| Carolyn Raab and others | Pacific Northwest Extension | No date
Consumers can reduce spoilage by matching foods with appropriate pantry, refrigerator, or freezer conditions and using suitable containers.
Using a First-In, First-Out System
| USDA Food and Nutrition Service | USDA | No date
Arranging older products in front of newer purchases encourages timely use while routine inventory checks reveal ingredients that should be prioritized.
Ethylene and Produce Storage
| UC Davis Postharvest Research and Extension Center | University of California, Davis | No date
Commodity-specific information about temperature, humidity, ethylene, and shelf life helps prevent premature deterioration during produce storage.
How Long Can Food Be Stored?
| Julie Garden-Robinson | North Dakota State University Extension | No date
Storage recommendations help consumers balance food safety with quality while avoiding premature disposal of properly handled products.
Using Fruits and Vegetables Completely
Preventing Produce Waste
Proper selection, storage, refrigeration, preparation, and freezing can extend the useful life of fruits and vegetables and protect household food budgets.
Saving Imperfect Produce
Accepting edible produce with unusual sizes, shapes, or surface imperfections can reduce losses caused by cosmetic retail and consumer expectations.
Reducing Fresh-Produce Losses After Harvest
Improved harvesting, handling, cooling, packaging, transport, processing, and marketing can prevent fruits and vegetables from being damaged before consumption.
Reducing Losses in Fruits and Vegetables
| Food and Agriculture Organization | FAO | 2004
Appropriate maturity selection, gentle handling, temperature management, packaging, transportation, and market coordination reduce damage to fresh produce.
Small-Scale Postharvest Handling Practices
| Lisa Kitinoja and Adel Kader | University of California, Davis | 2003
Practical handling methods help growers and distributors preserve quality and reduce losses in horticultural crops after harvest.
Using Overripe Bananas
| BBC Good Food Team | BBC Good Food | No date
Overripe bananas can be frozen or incorporated into bread, pancakes, smoothies, desserts, oatmeal, and other foods rather than discarded.
Preserving Tomatoes
| National Center for Home Food Preservation | University of Georgia | No date
Tested canning, acidification, and processing instructions help households safely preserve surplus tomatoes for later meals.
Preserving Apples
| Penn State Extension | Pennsylvania State University | No date
Apples can be canned, frozen, dried, or prepared as sauces and spreads, providing multiple ways to preserve a seasonal surplus.
Preserving Berries
| Oregon State University Extension | Oregon State University | No date
Freezing, drying, making spreads, and following tested canning procedures can extend the useful life of berries beyond their short fresh season.
Using Vegetable Tops and Stems
| FoodPrint Staff | FoodPrint | No date
Edible carrot tops, broccoli stalks, herb stems, beet greens, and similar parts can become pestos, stocks, sautés, soups, and garnishes.
Leftover Ingredients and Meals
Safe Handling of Take-Out Foods
| USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service | USDA | No date
Refrigerating restaurant leftovers promptly and reheating them safely allows take-out food to provide additional meals instead of entering the trash.
Using Leftover Rice Safely
| Food Standards Agency | UK Food Standards Agency | No date
Cooked rice should be cooled promptly, refrigerated, and reheated carefully because poor handling can allow heat-resistant bacterial spores to become hazardous.
Using Leftover Chicken
| BBC Good Food Team | BBC Good Food | No date
Cooked chicken can be repurposed in soups, sandwiches, salads, curries, pies, pasta dishes, and casseroles when stored and reheated safely.
Using Leftover Turkey
| BBC Good Food Team | BBC Good Food | No date
Holiday turkey can become curries, soups, pies, sandwiches, noodles, and other meals, reducing the waste associated with oversized celebrations.
Using Leftover Mashed Potatoes
| BBC Good Food Team | BBC Good Food | No date
Surplus potatoes can be transformed into fish cakes, croquettes, hash, soups, toppings, breads, and fried patties.
Using Leftover Cheese
| BBC Good Food Team | BBC Good Food | No date
Small pieces of cheese can enrich sauces, soups, gratins, omelets, toast, salads, and baked dishes rather than remaining forgotten in the refrigerator.
Using Leftover Herbs
| Bon Appétit Staff | Bon Appétit | No date
Extra herbs can be blended into sauces, infused into oils, frozen in cubes, dried, added to salads, or incorporated into compound butter.
Cooking With Broccoli Stems
| Sheela Prakash | The Kitchn | No date
Peeled broccoli stems can be shredded into slaw, roasted, spiralized, blended into soup, or cooked alongside the florets.
Using Citrus Peels
| University of Minnesota Extension | University of Minnesota | No date
Suitable citrus peel can be candied, zested, dried, infused, or used as a flavoring before the remaining inedible material is composted.
Making Stock From Scraps
| Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health | Harvard University | No date
Clean vegetable trimmings and appropriate meat bones can be frozen until enough accumulate to prepare stock, extending their culinary value.
Measuring Food Waste
Food Waste Index
| UN Environment Programme | UNEP | 2021
The report presents a methodology for measuring household, food-service, and retail waste and establishes evidence that household waste is a widespread global issue.
Food Loss and Waste Accounting and Reporting Standard
| Food Loss and Waste Protocol | World Resources Institute | 2016
The standard establishes consistent principles for defining, measuring, documenting, and reporting food and associated inedible material removed from supply chains.
Why Measure Food Waste?
| World Resources Institute | WRI | 2016
Reliable measurement enables organizations to identify major waste streams, prioritize action, set targets, calculate savings, and demonstrate progress.
Food Waste Measurement in Households
Waste diaries, kitchen caddies, composition studies, surveys, and direct weighing can reveal what households discard and why.
Food Waste Atlas
| World Resources Institute and WRAP | Food Waste Atlas | No date
The online database collects food-loss and waste measurements, allowing governments, researchers, and businesses to compare data and identify evidence gaps.
Food Loss Index
| Food and Agriculture Organization | FAO | No date
International measurements track losses between production and retail, helping countries locate supply-chain stages where targeted interventions are needed.
Quantifying Food Waste in the United States
| USDA Economic Research Service | USDA | No date
Food-availability and loss-adjusted data help researchers estimate how much food reaches consumers and how much may remain uneaten.
Target, Measure, Act
| Champions 12.3 | Champions 12.3 | No date
Organizations are encouraged to adopt a reduction target, measure waste consistently, and implement programs addressing the largest identified sources.
Food-Waste Audits for Schools
| World Wildlife Fund | WWF | No date
Students can conduct cafeteria audits, analyze discarded food, investigate causes, and propose changes to menus, portions, schedules, and recovery systems.
Farms and Supply Chains
The Role of Cold Chains
| FAO and UNEP | Food and Agriculture Organization | 2022
Sustainable refrigeration and temperature-controlled distribution can preserve perishable food, although energy use and refrigerants must also be managed responsibly.
Food Loss: Why Food Stays on the Farm or Off the Market
| Gregory Astill and others | USDA Economic Research Service | 2020
Produce may remain unharvested because of prices, labor costs, buyer specifications, weather, damage, market timing, and insufficient demand.
Food Loss in the Produce Supply Chain
| USDA Economic Research Service | USDA | 2020
Farm-level measurement can clarify how production decisions, cosmetic standards, market conditions, harvesting costs, and secondary markets affect produce losses.
Postharvest Losses in Grains
| Food and Agriculture Organization | FAO | 2015
Timely drying, moisture control, pest management, improved storage, careful handling, and market access can reduce losses in cereal supply chains.
Reducing Food Loss in Developing Countries
| World Resources Institute | WRI | 2013
Improved storage, transport, market information, processing, infrastructure, financing, and farmer organization can reduce losses after harvest.
Global Initiative on Food Loss and Waste Reduction
| Food and Agriculture Organization | FAO | No date
The initiative supports partnerships, research, awareness, policy development, and technical projects intended to reduce losses across agricultural supply chains.
Hermetic Storage for Smallholder Farmers
| International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center | CIMMYT | No date
Airtight storage bags and containers can limit insects and moisture-related damage without relying heavily on chemical pesticides.
Reducing Milk Losses
| Food and Agriculture Organization | FAO | No date
Hygienic milking, rapid cooling, clean containers, reliable collection, testing, and suitable processing protect milk from spoilage and contamination.
Reducing Fish Loss and Waste
| Food and Agriculture Organization | FAO | No date
Improved handling, icing, cold storage, processing, transport, market coordination, and utilization of by-products can reduce losses in fisheries.
Reducing Food Loss Through Better Transportation
| Food and Agriculture Organization | FAO | No date
Reliable transportation, suitable packaging, efficient logistics, shorter delays, and temperature management can prevent food from deteriorating between farms and markets.
Retail and Food-Service Innovation
Do Meal Kits Reduce Food Waste?
Preportioned meal kits may reduce household ingredient waste and meal-related emissions, although their packaging impacts must also be considered.
Smaller Plates in All-You-Can-Eat Dining
| Brian Wansink and Koert van Ittersum | Journal of Experimental Social Psychology | 2013
Research suggests that tableware and serving environments can influence how much food diners select and subsequently leave uneaten.
Trayless Dining in University Cafeterias
| Jennifer Thiagarajah and Victoria Getty | Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics | 2013
Removing trays may discourage diners from taking more items than they can comfortably carry and consume, potentially reducing cafeteria plate waste.
Dynamic Pricing for Perishable Food
Marking down food as it approaches the end of its marketable period can encourage timely sales and reduce disposal of edible inventory.
Improved Inventory Management
Better ordering, forecasting, inventory visibility, stock rotation, and sales analysis help retailers and food-service operators prevent overstock and spoilage.
Donation Transportation
Reliable vehicles, routing, cold storage, scheduling, and coordination can make it practical to move safe surplus food from donors to community organizations.
Standardized Date Labels
Clear, consistent labels can help consumers and employees distinguish quality guidance from safety-related instructions and reduce premature disposal.
Food-Waste Tracking Technology
| Winnow | Winnow Solutions | No date
Digital scales, cameras, and analytics can show commercial kitchens which foods are discarded, when waste occurs, and what it costs.
Surplus-Food Marketplace Technology
| Too Good To Go | Too Good To Go | No date
Mobile marketplaces allow businesses to sell unsold food at reduced prices, offering consumers lower-cost meals while improving recovery of surplus inventory.
Food-Sharing Applications
Community-sharing platforms connect neighbors and participating businesses so edible surplus food can be collected and used locally.
Upcycling and Circular Uses
Feeding Food Scraps to Animals
| U.S. Environmental Protection Agency | EPA | 2026
Properly managed food residuals can replace some conventional feed, but suppliers and farmers must comply with applicable animal-health and food-safety regulations.
Coffee-Ground Reuse
| Styliani Kourmentza and others | Journal of Cleaner Production | 2018
Spent coffee grounds have potential applications in compost, mushroom production, fuels, oils, adsorbents, bioplastics, and other circular products.
Brewers’ Spent Grain as Food
| Sara Lynch and others | Trends in Food Science & Technology | 2016
Brewers’ spent grain contains fiber, protein, and other components that may be recovered for food, feed, fermentation, or biomaterial applications.
Citrus-Peel Valorization
| Maria Negro and others | Bioresource Technology | 2016
Citrus-processing residues can supply pectin, oils, flavonoids, animal feed ingredients, fermentation inputs, and renewable-energy products.
Recovering Nutrients From Food Processing
| Carol Lin and others | Bioresource Technology | 2016
Biorefineries can separate food-processing residues into chemicals, fuels, materials, fertilizers, and other products instead of treating everything as refuse.
Using Fruit and Vegetable By-Products
| Mirabella and others | Journal of Cleaner Production | 2014
Peels, pomace, seeds, stems, and processing residues can sometimes supply fiber, natural colors, antioxidants, oils, pectin, or other valuable ingredients.
Upcycled Food Definition
| Upcycled Food Association | Upcycled Food Association | No date
Upcycled foods use ingredients that otherwise would not have entered human consumption, creating new value while following verifiable supply-chain standards.
Turning Food Waste Into Healthful Delights
| U.S. Agricultural Research Service | USDA | No date
Food researchers have developed value-added products from fruits and processing streams, creating markets while recovering edible material.
Upcycling Whey
| Food and Agriculture Organization | FAO | No date
Whey from cheesemaking can be processed into beverages, protein concentrates, lactose products, animal feed, fermentation substrates, and other useful materials.
Anaerobic Digestion of Food Waste
| U.S. Environmental Protection Agency | EPA | No date
Anaerobic digestion can convert unavoidable organic waste into biogas and nutrient-rich digestate after prevention, donation, and other higher-priority uses are considered.
Education, Communities, and Public Policy
Educating Youth About Wasted Food
| U.S. Environmental Protection Agency | EPA | No date
Educational resources help young people connect food waste with climate, water, agriculture, hunger, personal habits, and community action.
Food Matters Action Kit
| Commission for Environmental Cooperation | CEC | No date
Youth activities encourage food-waste measurement, smarter shopping, food storage, creative cooking, sharing, preservation, and composting across North America.
Food Waste Reduction in Local Government
| Natural Resources Defense Council | NRDC | No date
Cities can combine public education, prevention programs, rescue infrastructure, procurement reforms, organics collection, measurement, and supportive regulations.
Save the Food Campaign
| Natural Resources Defense Council and Ad Council | Save the Food | No date
Consumer messages and planning tools encourage people to shop carefully, store food correctly, use leftovers, understand dates, and recognize the resources embedded in food.
International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste
| Food and Agriculture Organization | FAO | No date
The annual observance promotes coordinated action by governments, businesses, farmers, institutions, and consumers toward Sustainable Development Goal 12.3.
Food Is Never Waste Coalition
| UN Food Systems Summit Coalition | Food Is Never Waste Coalition | No date
Coalition members advocate prevention, measurement, redistribution, circular practices, investment, and policy coordination throughout global food systems.
Zero Food Waste Coalition
| Zero Food Waste Coalition | Zero Food Waste Coalition | No date
Organizations collaborate on U.S. policies involving date labels, food donation, organics infrastructure, prevention funding, research, and public education.
Pacific Coast Food Waste Commitment
| Pacific Coast Collaborative | Pacific Coast Collaborative | No date
Governments and food businesses work together to measure waste, share data, test solutions, and pursue a regional goal of cutting wasted food in half.
Every Plate Counts
| One Planet Network | United Nations Environment Programme | No date
Consumer-information programs can make food’s environmental value more visible and encourage planning, portion control, responsible purchasing, and appreciation of leftovers.
