SECTORS CONTRIBUTING TO FOOD WASTE

53% Households

19% Processing

12% Food Service

11% Production

5% Wholesale and Retail

Graphic: Split of EU-28 food waste in 2012 by sector; includes food and inedible parts associated with food.

The sectors contributing the most to food waste are households (47 million tonnes ± 4 million tonnes) and processing (17 million tonnes ± 13 million tonnes). These two sectors account for 72 percent of EU food waste, although there is considerable uncertainty around the estimate for the processing sector compared to all the other sectors. This is due to only four MS providing information of sufficiently high quality.

In addition the differences in the normalized food waste amounts between the countries were great. Of the remaining 28 percent of food waste 11 million tonnes (12%) comes from food service, 9 million tonnes (10%) comes from primary production and 5 million tonnes (5%) comes from wholesale and retail.

Food Waste at Producers, Manufacturers,
Wholesalers, Food Service, Retailers Level

Estimates of food waste in EU-28 in 2012 from this qualification study; includes food and inedible parts associated with food.

SECTORS

173±27