More than 1bn meals thrown away daily while 730m people live in hunger

Food supplies being distributed to a camp in Ethiopia in 2022. Globally, about a fifth of food is wasted, the latest UN Food Waste Index report shows. Picture: Claire Nevill/WFP via AP

More than 1bn meals are thrown away every day, in poor countries as well as rich ones, despite more than 730m people living in hunger around the world.

About a fifth of food is wasted, sometimes through profligacy or poor planning, sometimes from a lack of access to refrigeration or storage, at a global cost of about $1tn a year, shows the UN Food Waste Index report published yesterday.