Since Corona, There Is Less Food Waste in Rich Countries

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, citizens of rich countries changed their relationship with food. Consequently, they wasted less food and became more aware of the link between food waste and global warming. 

“People didn’t want to go out as much, and things they found in their kitchen that normally they would throw away… now they were interested to find out if it was still okay to eat,” says Rachel Jackson, a Washington-based journalist who runs Eat or Toss, a website that helps people assess if foods are still safe to eat.

The pandemic revealed to many the preciosity of food. A recent survey of 7,000 people across Europe showed that food waste is declining. The number of people who said they threw away almost no food doubled to 70% during the lockdown. Cutting food waste can significantly cut climate-changing emissions since food production is a major factor of deforestation and a big consumer of fossil fuels for farming, processing, and delivery.