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What Is the Issue?

“Food loss” represents the amount of edible food, postharvest, that is available for human 

consumption but is not consumed for any reason; it includes cooking loss and natural shrinkage 

(e.g., moisture loss); loss from mold, pests, or inadequate climate control; and plate waste. “Food 

waste” is a component of food loss and occurs when an edible item goes unconsumed, such 

as food discarded by retailers due to undesirable color or blemishes and plate waste discarded 

by consumers. Food loss (particularly the food waste component) is becoming an increasingly 

important topic both domestically and internationally. Better estimates of the amount and value 

of food loss, including food waste, could help serve as quantitative baselines for policymakers and 

the food industry to set targets and develop initiatives, legislation, or policies to minimize food 

waste, conserve resources, and improve human nutrition. Reducing food loss would likely reduce 

food prices in the United States and the rest of the world, though the effects depend on the nature 

of supply, including import and export considerations. 

What Did the Study Find?

In the United States, 31 percent—or 133 billion pounds—of the 430 billion pounds of the available food supply at the retail and consumer levels in 2010 went uneaten. Retail-level losses represented 10 percent (43 billion pounds) and consumer-level losses 21 percent (90 billion pounds) of 

the available food supply. (Losses on the farm and between the farm and retailer were not estimated due to data limitations for some of the food groups.) 

The estimated total value of food loss at the retail and consumer levels in the United States was 

$161.6 billion in 2010. The top three food groups in terms of share of total value of food loss were 

meat, poultry, and fish (30 percent, $48 billion); vegetables (19 percent, $30 billion); and dairy 

products (17 percent, $27 billion). The total amount of food loss represents 387 billion calories 

(technically, we mean Calorie or kcal hereafter) of food not available for human consumption per 

day in 2010, or 1,249 out of 3,796 calories available per American per day. Recovery costs, food 

safety considerations, and other factors would reduce the amount of food that could actually be 

recovered for human consumption. 

United States Department of Agriculture

A report summary from the Economic Research Service February 2014

ERS is a primary source 

of economic research and 

analysis from the U.S. 

Department of Agriculture, 

providing timely information on economic and policy 

issues related to agriculture, 

food, the environment, and 

rural America.

Find the full report 

at www.ers.usda.

gov/publications/eibeconomic-informationbulletin/EIB-121.aspx

Jean C. Buzby, Hodan F. Wells, and Jeffrey Hyman

Economic

Research

Service

Economic 

Information

Bulletin

Number 121

February 2014

United States Department of Agriculture

The Estimated Amount, Value, and 

Calories of Postharvest Food Losses 

at the Retail and Consumer Levels 

in the United States

Jean C. Buzby, Hodan F. Wells, and Jeffrey Hyman

The Estimated Amount, Value, and 

Calories of Postharvest Food Losses 

at the Retail and Consumer Levels 

in the United States
The study also reviewed the literature and found that food loss is economically efficient in some cases. There is a practical limit to how much food loss the United States or any other country could realistically prevent, reduce, or recover 

for human consumption given: (1) technical factors (e.g., the perishable nature of most foods, food safety, storage, and 

temperature considerations); (2) temporal and spatial factors (e.g., the time needed to deliver food to a new destination, and the dispersion of food loss among millions of households, food processing plants, and foodservice locations); 

(3) individual consumers’ tastes, preferences, and food habits (e.g., throwing out milk left over in a bowl of cereal); 

and (4) economic factors (e.g., costs to recover and redirect uneaten food to another use).

How Was the Study Conducted?

This report uses data from ERS’s Loss-Adjusted Food Availability (LAFA) data series. This data series is ERS’s core 

Food Availability data series, adjusted for spoilage, plate waste, and other food losses and converted to daily per capita 

amounts, calories, and food pattern equivalents (previously called servings and MyPyramid equivalents). Here, the 

LAFA data series’ underlying loss assumptions are used to estimate food loss at the retail and consumer levels. The 

LAFA data series is considered to be preliminary because ERS continues to improve the underlying loss assumptions 

and the documentation of the data series. In August 2012, new estimates for consumer-level loss were incorporated 

into the data series. Therefore, the relative contribution of the different food groups out of total food loss has changed 

from previous ERS publications on food loss. The analysis is an extrapolation from the data as of September 2012 and 

is not based on an equilibrium model. For each food group covered here, we calculated the amount, value, and representative calories of food loss at the retail and consumer levels in the United States in 2010. The value estimates are 

based on retail prices. 

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