According to a food waste non-profit group, in 2023 food retailers in the US ‘generated 4.45M tons of surplus food, nearly 35% of which went to landfill or was incinerated as waste.’ That 35% works out at around 9 lbs (4 kg) of food per person in America. With food prices sky high and 47 million Americans facing hunger, including 1 in 5 children, destroying food ‘surpluses’ could be regarded as a crime against humanity.
Yet today’s food industry exists not to provide food but to make a profit. US retailers do give away some surplus to charity, but they destroy far more to keep prices high. What an indictment of the capitalist economic system, to destroy what people need!