Why it matters
The bin is the last stop on a long road.
Every year the world throws away more than a billion tonnes of food, and most of it is binned at home. That's money, land and emissions gone, while 645 million people go hungry.4 Most of it isn't carelessness. It's not knowing what's in the cupboard, misreading a date label, and having no plan for dinner.
In short
- About one in five plates of food available to consumers is thrown away: over 1 billion tonnes a year.1
- Households waste 60% of it. The average person bins79 kg a year at home.1
- It costs over $1 trillion a year, uses 28% of the world's farmland and causes 8–10% of greenhouse gas emissions.3
- Most of the fixes are about information and habit: know what you have, eat the oldest first, cook the right amount. That's what Pantler does.
Who wastes it
Six in ten wasted plates are ours.
Share of food wasted by shops, food services and households, the food available to consumers.1
- 60%Households
- 28%Restaurants and food services
- 12%Shops
Per person, that's 132 kg of food a year, 79 kg of it at home. The gap between the highest and lowest countries is almost sevenfold, so waste isn't inevitable: habits and kitchens make the difference.
The cost
Waste costs more than the food.
Throwing food away also throws away the money, land, water and energy that went into growing it.3
Money
$1 trillion+
Food loss and waste costs the world economy more than a trillion dollars a year.
Land
28%
About 1.4 billion hectares of farmland, an area larger than Canada, grows food nobody eats.
Climate
8–10%
Of global greenhouse gas emissions, including methane from food rotting in landfill.
At home
Eight small habits, and where Pantler helps.
The steps UN agencies and campaigners recommend for cutting waste at home.
- 1 of 8
Plan before you shop
Check what you have, plan the week's meals, shop with a list.
PantlerYour pantry is already counted, so the list only holds what's missing.
- 2 of 8
Understand date labels
"Use by" is about safety. "Best before" is about quality.
PantlerTracks the two label types separately, so good food isn't binned early.
- 3 of 8
Store food properly
Fridge at 5°C or below; keep bananas away from other fruit.
PantlerA storage tip for each item as it lands in the pantry.
- 4 of 8
Use the freezer
Bread, cooked meals, meat and many vegetables freeze well.
PantlerA "freeze it now?" nudge before something turns.
- 5 of 8
Cook the right amount
Measure portions, especially rice and pasta.
PantlerRecipes scaled to the people at your table.
- 6 of 8
Eat the oldest food first
Move older items to the front: first in, first out.
PantlerSuggestions lead with whatever is closest to its date.
- 7 of 8
Use leftovers and scraps
Leftovers become new meals; peels and stalks become stock.
PantlerLog leftovers as pantry items and get ideas for them.
- 8 of 8
Compost what you can't eat
Keeps peels and shells out of landfill, where they release methane.
PantlerFlags compostable scraps and counts what you divert.
Sources
Where the numbers come from.
All figures are from Marium Ali and Mohamed Hussein, "Which countries waste the most food, and how to reduce waste at home",Al Jazeera, 16 October 2026 (World Food Day), which draws on the agencies below.
- 1UNEP. UN Environment Programme, Food Waste Index Report (2022 data), via Al Jazeera, 16 Oct 2026
- 2FAO. Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN, food loss estimates, via Al Jazeera, 16 Oct 2026
- 3UN. United Nations figures on the cost, land use and emissions of food loss and waste, via Al Jazeera, 16 Oct 2026
- 4SOFI. The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (2025 data), via Al Jazeera, 16 Oct 2026
Data years are mixed: waste figures are for 2022 and hunger figures for 2025. "One in five plates" refers to food available to consumers (shops, food services and households), not total production. Country figures are UN estimates and data quality varies.