FoodProblem 0015
Loss happens at the handovers: field to packer, packer to distributor, distributor to shelf. Every party measures only its own side of each one. So each set of numbers looks defensible while the total is enormous, and the interventions that would work are precisely the ones nobody can see, because they sit between two businesses rather than inside one.
Who lives with itGrowers and packers · distributors and independent retailers · redistribution charities working the same corridors
Why nowFAO estimates that 13.3% of the world's food was lost in 2023 after harvest and before retail, on farms and in transport, storage, wholesale and processing, up slightly from 13.0% in 2015 when global monitoring began.
Why it mattersMeasurement at the handover is the wedge, and it is cheap: the produce is already photographed, weighed and scanned on both sides of every transfer. Nobody is joining those records, because each side owns only its own.
Inspired by reporting from Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations