Food Waste Stories

  • Busting myths about food waste

    September 23, 2024

    Did you know that up to 40% of all food produced is lost or wasted globally? The food we lose on farms alone could feed the world’s undernourished population almost four times over.

    Reducing food waste is a huge challenge, but also an opportunity. We have proven solutions that can help tackle the food waste crisis. However, a number of myths pose barriers to adopting them.

    Here are seven myths about food waste, and why they’re not true.

    Fresh plums sit in a pile. They are reddish purple with brown stems
  • Farm Fresh

    WWF Magazine: Summer 2023
    Work starts early on White Gate Farm in East Lyme, Connecticut, and on a recent fall morning it involved more than putting on gloves and preparing for a day of harvesting acres of vegetables.
    Woman opening box of vegetables
  • WWF's Julia Kurnik on working with communities to reform food systems

    WWF Magazine: Summer 2023
    Learning about so many places was eye-opening, but my biggest takeaway was how broken our food system was for so many people.
    Julia Kurnik dressed as beekeeper, inspecting hive
  • Pulling back the curtain on food “expiration” dates

    WWF Magazine: Summer 2023
    You probably have a carton of milk in your fridge with a date inked on it—one that you’ve come to think indicates impending decay.
    Illustrations of milk with expiration date crossed out
  • WWF works with the US Postal Service to bring food from farm to table

    Farmers Post uses the US Postal Service to make same-day or next-day delivery of orders of fresh-picked vegetables. The program can help eliminate food waste and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

    A woman in a pink shirt smiles on a porch holding a box of vegetables to mail
  • How the next Farm Bill can reduce food loss and waste across the US

    April 26, 2022

    By prioritizing food waste reduction and prevention alongside other interventions, the 2023 Farm Bill offers a critical opportunity for Congress to help us transition to a regenerative, equitable, and circular food system.

    An oasis for wildlife, Spin and Mindy's homestead perches atop rolling hills flanked by corn fields
  • What farmers found when they measured fresh produce left in the field

    March 15, 2022

    To target and help prevent food waste at the start of the supply chain, WWF supported seven growers and companies to assess the amount of food left behind in their fields and operations during the 2021 growing season.

    Man bending over in field of cabbages
  • We’re losing 40% of the food we produce. Here’s how to stop food waste.

    August 19, 2021

    Today, 40% of food grown never gets eaten—1 billion more tonnes (1.1 billion tons) of food than previously estimated. The causes of food waste are complex in any region. Luckily, there are solutions.

    A man stands on the back of a blue tractor that's hauling harvested sugarcane
  • How produce delivered by mail could help both people and nature

    February 24, 2021

    What if you could get fresh fruit and vegetables from local farmers delivered along with your mail? In a 2021 analysis, WWF looked at how the United States Postal Service—your daily mail carrier—could bridge the gap between farmers and food shoppers, in a proposed program we call Farmers Post.

    A woman with brown hair in a plaid shirt picks a cucumber growing in a greenhouse
  • Supercharge your soil with kitchen food scraps

    WWF Magazine: Spring 2021
    Composting may sound like hard, messy work. But done right, it can be a simple (and even tidy) way to benefit your garden and the planet.
    Illustration of apple tree with compost beneath
  • Blazhka Dimitrova wants to inspire a zero-waste world

    WWF Magazine: Winter 2020
    In 2020, Dimitrova had transformed her catering company into Blagichka-Zero Waste, the first zero-waste restaurant in Bulgaria.
    Bulgaria restaurant window with hanging plants
  • Small steps to reduce food waste

    April 01, 2020

    Right now, reducing waste is ever more important and we can all look at how to do that in our own kitchens.

    a refrigerator shelf
  • Last Call for Food combats food waste and food insecurity

    WWF Magazine: Spring 2020
    What if there was a way to combat both food waste and food insecurity with a single solution? From this, Last Call was born.
    Erin McGeoy
  • Food Waste Warriors

    In the spring of 2019, WWF, with support from The Kroger Co. Foundation and the US EPA, looked at post-service food waste in 46 schools in nine US cities across eight states. This is what they found.

    Food Waste Education Program by the World Wildlife Fund at Seaton Public Elementary School in Washington, DC, United States of America
  • The food-climate connection

    October 16, 2019

    It seems obvious, but sometimes we need a reminder. Food comes from nature. So everything we eat has an impact on the planet—from how it's grown, to how its packaged, to how it gets where it’s going, how it's cooked, and at the end of the meal, where it winds up (say, your tummy, the trash or a compost pile).

    Food at market
  • A wake-up call on agriculture’s role in climate change

    August 08, 2019

    The connection between food and land use and global climate change is the subject of a special report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations body that assesses the science of climate change for the benefit of global policymakers. IPCC’s August 2019 report focuses especially on the impact of agriculture—with good reason.

    Iowa agricultural land.
  • July 4th and food waste: Some tips from our Founding Fathers

    George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson wrote passionately about the value of using food scraps and other waste items to fertilize soil. Here are a few tips to lower your food footprint during the summer holidays.

    Family at backyard cookout
  • Eating a variety of foods is good for you—and the planet

    WWF Magazine: Summer 2019
    Americans, on average, consume more fats and oils, added sugar and sweeteners, proteins, and grains than recommended. Overconsumption of foods like these affects the planet.
    Food on a mobile
  • One way to tackle food waste? Eat more of what we grow.

    WWF Magazine: Spring 2019
    While most loss or waste of food takes place in restaurants, hotels, grocery stores, or our own kitchens, crops that go unharvested on farms are a piece of the puzzle, too.
    Close-up of romaine lettuce
  • 5 ways to shop and eat smarter for the climate

    As shoppers and eaters, we have immense power to save habitats, fight climate change, and keep our planet livable by taking simple actions at home and in stores every day. Here are five steps you can take right now.

    A boy in a market in Bhutan
  • WWF examines the loss of produce on farms and pathways to change

    August 21, 2018

    Did you know that food loss can occur long before you even buy it? WWF zoomed in on 35 farms across the country to assess how much produce never leaves the field after harvest. 

    Peaches in a tree
  • From ocean to plate

    June 06, 2018

    About 35% of harvested fish and seafood is either lost or wasted along the supply chain. So where does this loss happen and what can you do to help?

    barracuda Cat Holloway WW172318
  • Students step up to tackle food waste at school

    WWF Magazine: Spring 2018
    WWF’s Food Waste Warrior program for grades 5 to 12 helps students develop math and science skills as they conduct an audit of their school’s food waste and learn how food impacts the environment.
    takeaway tray spring2018
  • Looking for a New Year’s resolution? Put your food waste on a diet

    Around the world, a third of the food we grow and process to feed people never reaches our plates (or our bellies). That has serious impacts on the planet's water, energy, and wildlife! Try exercising these tips to drop those food waste pounds

    a refrigerator shelf