Wasting Produce

At a time when over 50 million people are food insecure and we face an obesity crisis, it’s a shame that 40% of food is never eaten. A close look shows us that Americans are tossing 52% of the nation’s nutritious fruits and vegetables – wasting produce, more than any other type of food product, including seafood, meat, grains and dairy, at nearly every level across the supply chain.  I called Dana Gunders, NRDC project scientist with the food and agriculture program: “There are losses due to storage and transport, losses in supermarkets, at restaurants, in households and also on farms.” Dana says that most alarming is the latter category.

In fact, some of this massive produce loss is happening well before it reaches retailers, as perfectly edible produce is literally being left on the field or sent to the landfill. And many of these good fruits and vegetables are never even harvested.