17% of food available to consumers in 2019 went to waste: UN

A staggering 17% of food available to consumers, which is about  931 million tonnes was wasted in 2019, a new report by the United Nations says.

The UN report says majority of the wasted food, that is about 61% came from households, 26% was wasted by the food service industry, while retail contributed to 13% of the wastage.

The report also noted that food wastage is not limited to developed countries like the United States or the United Kingdom. Many countries have not yet quantified their food waste, so they don't understand the magnitude of the problem.

South Asia is no better. In India, 50 kg of food per person per year goes to waste, 82 kg per person is wasted in Afghanistan and 79 kg per person is wasted in Nepal.