More than a billion tonnes of food is discarded worldwide every year even as roughly 645 million people suffered from hunger in 2025, according to United Nations data highlighted on World Food Day.
The annual observance on October 16 marks the 1945 founding of the Food and Agriculture Organization under this year's theme, “Innovate today, nourish tomorrow”. It draws attention to a global imbalance where approximately one in five plates of served food ends up in the bin while 7.8 percent of the global population remains undernourished.
According to the UN’s State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report, global hunger dropped for a third consecutive year from a peak of 8.6 percent in 2022. However, the number of undernourished people remains about 61 million higher than in 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Africa remains the most severely affected region, accounting for 309 million hungry people, or nearly half the global total. By comparison, 292 million people in Asia and 32 million in Latin America and the Caribbean experienced undernourishment. The 2026 Global Hunger Index classed hunger levels as “alarming” in eight nations, led by Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Chad and Madagascar, alongside unranked nations including Sudan, South Sudan, Burundi and Yemen.
Food supplies suffer severe attrition across every stage of the supply chain. The FAO estimates that approximately 13 percent of global production, valued at more than $400 billion annually, spoils during harvesting, storage, processing and transit before reaching retailers. Fruits and vegetables register the highest losses.
At the retail and consumer level, about 1.05 billion tonnes was discarded in 2022, according to the UN Environment Programme. Households were responsible for 60 percent of this waste, followed by the food service industry at 28 percent and retail shops at 12 percent. Globally, individuals waste an average of 132 kilograms of food each year, including 79 kilograms discarded at home.
Waste rates vary sharply by country. The Maldives recorded the highest rate at approximately 260 kilograms per person annually, followed by Syria, the Dominican Republic, Seychelles, Mexico and Tunisia, all exceeding 210 kilograms per person. In contrast, Spain recorded some of the lowest figures at 39 kilograms or less per resident.
The UN calculates that global food loss and waste costs the economy more than $1 trillion annually. Discarded food also accounts for an estimated 8 to 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and ties up 1.4 billion hectares of agricultural land, an area larger than Canada, to grow crops that are never consumed.
