Food waste statistics for the EU: how much do we actually throw away?

EU food waste at a glance (2023)

Source: Eurostat, Food waste and food waste prevention: estimates, together with the Eurostat news release of 16 October 2025 on 130 kg of food wasted per person annually in the EU.

Who wastes the most?

More than half of all food waste in the EU happens at home. That is an uncomfortable figure, but also an encouraging one: the largest part of the problem sits in habits that individual households can change, without waiting for industry or legislation. Part of those 69 kilograms is unavoidable, such as peel and bones. The rest is food bought with good intentions and then forgotten.

The order is not accidental either. At the start of the chain, businesses work with large volumes and tight planning; at home, people shop for a week that rarely goes exactly as expected. That is why the household is also the place where a small change in habits makes the biggest difference.

The EU target for 2030

With the 2025 revision of the Waste Framework Directive, the EU set binding food waste reduction targets for the first time. By 2030, food waste in processing and manufacturing is to fall by 10 %, and food waste in retail, restaurants, food services and households together is to fall by 30 % per capita. Both targets are measured against the average for 2021 to 2023. These are EU-wide targets; how each member state gets there is a national matter, and this page does not attempt to summarise national plans.

Figures by country

Alongside the EU total, Eurostat publishes figures for each member state, and national statistics offices publish their own country data, often with more detail on what households actually throw away. The two are not always directly comparable, because measurement methods and definitions vary from country to country. If you want to compare your own country with the EU average, the Eurostat tables are the safest place to do it, since one definition applies to everyone. This page deliberately stays at EU level. When you read national figures, check the reference year and whether inedible parts are included. For Sweden, this site has a separate page with national figures, matsvinn i Sverige, written in Swedish and based on the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and the Swedish Food Agency.

What the figures mean for a household

Sixty-nine kilograms per person per year is a bag of shopping every week or so, much of it fruit, vegetables, bread and leftovers that were meant to be eaten. Surveys across Europe keep pointing to the same remedies: plan a few dinners at a time, shop from a list, store food properly and use what has the shortest date first. None of it is complicated; the difficulty is keeping it up when the week gets busy. Read how to reduce food waste at home, and see how a meal planner that knows what is already in the fridge turns it from a project into a habit. Cibello builds a food inventory from photos of your fridge, freezer and cupboard, shows what needs eating soon and suggests recipes from what is there. You check what the AI recognised before it is saved, since it can misread a label.

If you want to cite this page

You are welcome to use the figures with a reference to Eurostat as the original source. If you want to cite this summary: "Cibello, Food waste statistics for the EU, cibello.app/en/food-waste-statistics-eu/, updated September 2026". Questions about the page: hello@cibello.app.