International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste.
According to The Sustainable Development Goals Report (2024), global hunger and food insecurity have persisted high since the pandemic COVID-19, with 733 million people facing hunger in 2023 and 2.33 billion people experiencing moderate to severe food insecurity all over the world in this same year .
More sustainable, resilient and equitable food systems are crucial in the way towards SDG2: Zero Hunger. However, 30% of the produced food is lost or wasted on a global scale in the different stages of the process: food production, processing, distribution and consumption. This reality burdens the efforts towards SDG2 (zero hunger) and SDG12 (sustainable consumption and production), which are goals very much related among them.
Being food waste a global concern, research is highlighting, among many other factors, the possibility of reflecting and modifying some consumer behaviours. In raising awareness about the impacts of food waste and making informed decisions about what to eat, being responsible agents for food consumption, consumers can look for strategies to reduce food waste and to modify the consumption culture valuing quality over quantity.
Food waste, for example, can be reduced at households with children involving them in meal planning and food preparation, limiting the consumption of ultra-processed items, as well as improving the food management of perishable food and/or avoiding the over-purchasing of perishable items.
These are little actions which can make a powerful difference.