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Targeted investments to combat food loss and waste and generate triple wins
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Friday, 03 October, 2025, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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Rome
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To mark the International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste 2025, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), highlighted that reducing food loss and waste generates numerous socioeconomic and environmental benefits and called for targeted investments across the agrifood value chain.
"By taking action to prevent and reduce food loss and waste, we can generate triple wins: improving food security and nutrition, providing economic benefits for primary producers, businesses, and consumers, and lowering environmental and climate impacts while protecting biodiversity and reducing pollution," said QU Dongyu, FAO director-general, in a video message at a special event co-organised with the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) at FAO headquarters in Rome.
Dongyu noted that to fully realise these benefits, a diverse range of targeted investments across the value chain is necessary, particularly in low and middle-income countries, where food insecurity and malnutrition are most prevalent.
Key investment areas include: i) infrastructure development to minimise food losses; ii) innovative technologies to track and reduce food loss and waste; iii) implementation of circular economy approaches that maximise food utilisation; and iv) enhancing the capacity of stakeholders to reduce food losses and waste and educating consumers to effectively reduce food waste.
Currently, an estimated 13.2 percent of food – equivalent to 1.25 billion tonnes – is lost after harvest and before reaching retail. Additionally, in 2022, over 1 billion tonnes (19 percent) of food was wasted in households, food services, and retail. While at the same time, an estimated 8.2 percent of the global population, or about 673 million people, experienced hunger in 2024, and 2.6 billion could not afford a healthy diet.
In his video-message, the FAO director-general announced in addition to last year’s launch of the Food Loss App (FLAPP), the creation of Opti-waste, a digital application that facilitates the registration and analysis of food waste in schools, serving as a foundation for improving the nutritional quality of school meals and reducing food waste.
Dongyu also emphasised that addressing food loss and waste is a systemic challenge that requires collaboration from all sectors.
"Strong partnerships with the private sector are particularly important in unlocking the investments and strengthening the capacity needed to enable the adoption of new technologies and innovations. Accelerating actions to reduce food loss and waste is now a matter of urgency, and a priority, to ensure a sustainable foods-secure future for all,” he concluded.
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