Nearly Half of Canada’s Food Production Goes to Waste Every Year, Report Says

A box of food scraps that will be composted sits at the Norcal Waste Systems transfer station in San Francisco in a file photo. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Canada is discarding 46.5 percent of its annual food production at an estimated cost of more than $50 billion every year, according to a newly released report.

The food system disposes of 21.1 million tonnes of the food it produces annually and, according to a report from non-profit group Second Harvest, 8.8 million tonnes—or 41.6 percent—of that waste could have been “rescued” to feed more than 17 million Canadians per year.