Time to bin our wasteful attitude to food

Every year, we waste or lose 1.3bn metric tonnes of food — one third of the world’s annual food production. The sheer scale of the number makes it almost impossible to grasp, no matter how one approaches it. Try to imagine 143,000 Eiffel Towers stacked one on top of another.

The figure is all the more unfathomable, given that, alongside this massive wastage and loss, 840m people experience chronic hunger daily. Many millions more suffer from “silent hunger” — malnutrition and micronutrient deficiencies.

For the more economically minded, here is another number: Food wastage and loss, expressed in producer prices, costs roughly €650bn per year. If we were to consider retail prices and the wider impacts on the environment, including climate change, the figure would be much higher.