We throw out 69 kilograms of food per person a year, at home alone

The average EU resident throws out 69 kilograms of food a year at home. Not at a factory, not at a shop, at home. That's Eurostat data for 2023.

Two numbers are easy to mix up, so let's separate them right away. All food waste, from field through processing and shop to plate, is 130 kilograms per person a year in the EU. Of that, 69 kilograms, more than half, happens in homes. The rest happens earlier, before the food reaches you. The half that's up to us is those 69 kilograms.

In Poland the scale is just as large. The PROM study by the Polish Federation of Food Banks estimates 4.84 million tonnes of food wasted a year across the whole chain, and about 60% of that, nearly 3 million tonnes, comes from households. On top of that, 45% of Poles admit they throw out food at least occasionally.

Where the bin fills up

It isn't that anyone wastes on purpose. The bin fills itself, from a few everyday habits:

• Shopping without a plan. You grab what looks good on the shelf, and at home it turns out there's no meal in it.
• Buying to stock up. A third yogurt on promotion is tempting, but two will hit their date first.
• Full packages with no plan for the rest. Half a bunch of parsley, a quarter of a cabbage and the end of a tub of cream sit there until they have to go.

It isn't laziness or extravagance. It's the lack of a plan that would finish the package and turn leftovers into the next meal.

Three moves that cut the waste

We counted each of these earlier on this blog, for saving money. On waste they work the same way:

• Finish your packages. Plan a 400 g tub of yogurt for the whole thing, spread a litre of milk across a few mornings, buy fruit and vegetables by weight, exactly what the recipes use. Nothing is left without a job.
• Build the week on a base that keeps. Groats, pasta, rice and legumes wait in the cupboard for weeks, so build on them and add fresh ingredients for a specific dinner.
• Make one list for the whole week. When every item has a meal assigned, you don't buy a third yogurt just in case.

This is food you've already paid for. The average Pole spends 475.68 zł a month per person on food, so anything that lands in the bin instead of on the plate is money thrown out with it.

The half you control

Snugmeal plans a week of meals so you buy exactly what you'll eat. One plan, one shopping list, fresh ingredients mapped to specific days, dry pantry as the base. Less in the bin, less on the receipt, without keeping track of it in your head.

It launches this autumn. Leave your address in the form just below this post, and at launch you'll get a one-time 20% discount code for your first subscription.

Data: Eurostat, "Food waste and food waste prevention, estimates", 2023 (household and whole-chain food waste per EU inhabitant). PROM study, Polish Federation of Food Banks and IOŚ-PIB (food waste in Poland, whole chain and the household share). Share of people from the Food Banks report "Nie marnuj jedzenia 2024". Monthly food spending from Statistics Poland (GUS), Household Budget Survey 2024. Our own calculations.