Top: Image courtesy U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently released a report, “Estimating the Cost of Food Waste to American Consumers,” that updates the federal estimate of consumer spending on food that goes to waste. The EPA estimates that the annual per capita cost of consumer food waste in the U.S. is $728, or $2,913 for a household of four. The report uses the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Loss-Adjusted Food Availability (LAFA) data series, which includes data on over 200 food commodities, differentiates between edible and inedible portions, and accounts for “food spoilage, plate waste, and other losses at different stages of the food supply and consumption chain.” LAFA supplies data such as weights by commodity at the consumer level, which includes food purchased for consumption at home (e.g. groceries) and away from home (e.g. meals in restaurants/foodservice). Although at-home food waste is often measured and reported separately from foodservice food waste, the LAFA data combines the two, and so does the EPA report. LAFA data are rolled into 14 commodity groups (e.g. meat, fresh vegetables) and combined with 2023 retail price data from the Nielsen IQ Retail Measurement Services syndicated price database to calculate the price of waste for each food commodity group.

This report uses data sources and a methodology that is comparable to the often-cited USDA 2014 report on the cost of consumer food waste, which was based on 2010 price data and estimated that a household of four spent $1,500/year on food that was ultimately wasted. Since 2014, several other estimates of consumer food waste spending have been published. For example, a 2025 ReFED report estimates that the cost of consumer food waste in 2023 was $780 per capita. ReFED’s estimate is based on a variety of data sources not including LAFA, such as residential food waste surveys. EPA’s number — $728 — is likely an underestimate because it uses only retail food prices, and food purchased at restaurants is usually more expensive than groceries. For an average American household of four, $2,913 represents over 11% of the annual food budget. Given how much the cost of food has risen since the last federal estimate was published in 2014, this new estimate paints a more accurate picture of the toll of household food waste and the opportunity to save money by wasting less.