Australian households and businesses are wasting around A$36 billion worth of food every year, with experts warning many companies do not realise how much profit is disappearing into their rubbish bins.
Around 7.6 million tonnes of food is discarded annually across Australia, despite roughly 70% of it still being edible.
The hospitality industry alone wastes about 1.2 million tonnes of food each year, carrying an estimated economic cost of A$6.4 billion.
For individual food-service businesses, the average cost has been estimated at around A$66,000 annually.
Yet fewer than one-quarter of businesses regularly measure or inspect how much food they are throwing away.
Waste becomes margin problem
The problem is increasingly relevant as Australian hospitality businesses struggle with higher wages, energy prices, rents and food costs.
Reducing waste can therefore improve margins without requiring businesses to increase menu prices or attract additional customers.
Restaurants, hotels, pubs and manufacturers can lose money through oversized portions, unnecessary preparation, spoiled ingredients and poor inventory management.
The environmental costs are also significant.
Food sent to landfill generates methane as it decomposes, while every discarded product represents wasted water, energy, farmland, transport and labour.
The Federal Government has committed to halving Australia’s food waste by 2030, but there are concerns progress is too slow to meet that target.
Businesses are increasingly being encouraged to measure waste in the same way they track wages, electricity or inventory.
With households also facing persistent food inflation, the scale of the losses creates an unusual economic contradiction: Australia is throwing away billions of dollars of food at the same time consumers and businesses are struggling with the cost of buying it.
