All over the world, holidays mean the return of certain specialties: Olivier salad for New Year’s in Russia, red bean porridge for solstice in Korea, haleem for Ramadan in India and the Middle East, mince pies for Christmas in England, pogača bread for Orthodox Easter or banana cakes for Lunar New Year in Vietnam. Whatever the holiday is and wherever in the world it is celebrated, there is usually a type of special food that goes along with it.

The holidays are a great time to celebrate and appreciate food. Yet, in some parts of the world, holidays have become synonymous with over-eating and food waste. And food isn’t the only thing that is wasted when it goes uneaten: all of the resources (like seeds, energy, land, water, feed, etc.), money and labour that go into producing, harvesting, processing, transporting and preparing it are also wasted. Not to mention the pollution and greenhouse gases that are created for nothing, throughout the entire food supply chain, when this food ends up in landfills. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) estimates that between 8-10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions are associated with food that was never consumed. 

We need to stop food loss and waste at all stages of the food supply system. In 2019, FAO estimated that 14 percent of all food produced globally is lost, from post-harvest all the way up to but not including retail. UNEP additionally estimated that 17 percent of food production globally was discarded or wasted by households, retailers and the food service sector in 2019. This is the equivalent of approximately 931 million tonnes of food.

While we celebrate the people and ideas that we value, let us make saving food one of them.