The food you lose before you sell it

The measured figure

The FAO maintains the food loss index as an SDG indicator. As of its 2023 assessment, the global figure stands at 13.3%, a marginal increase on 13.0% in 2015 — and sub-Saharan Africa is the highest region at 23.0%, up from 22.1%.

Close to a quarter of food, lost between production and retail. Not in a bad year — as the measured regional norm.

What the index actually covers

Precision matters here because the terms get used loosely. The food loss index measures loss from post-harvest up to but not including retail. It is distinct from food *waste*, which covers the retail and consumption end, and the two are reported separately under the same SDG target.

For a retailer, that makes the 23.0% figure context rather than a target. It describes the condition of the supply chain your deliveries come through — and it tells you something practical: produce arriving at your door has already been through a chain that loses close to a quarter of what it handles. Its remaining shelf life is shorter and more variable than a delivery note suggests.

The numbers to be careful with

There is a family of much larger claims in circulation — "30 to 50% of food produced in sub-Saharan Africa is lost before reaching the market" is the most common — generally attributed to the FAO without a traceable publication. Others put fruit and vegetable losses at up to 50%, or specific crops much higher.

Some of those may be accurate for particular crops in particular places. But they are not the measured regional figure, and using a 50% number when the official index says 23.0% invites exactly the challenge you do not want.

From statistic to shelf

The operational translation is short. If shelf life arriving at your door is shorter and less predictable than the supplier implies, then:

• Record expiry at receiving, per delivery, not as a product attribute. The same product from two deliveries has two different remaining lives, and treating expiry as a property of the product loses that.
• Issue by earliest expiry, not earliest receipt. A short-dated later delivery has to go out first, which is FEFO rather than FIFO.
• Compare remaining life against cover. Sixty days of life on a line with ninety days of cover is already a loss; you want to know that while there is still time to discount or transfer.
• Code waste by reason. Spoiled, damaged, expired and short-delivered are four different conversations — one with your staff, one with your supplier, one with your buyer.

The regional figure is not something a single shop can change. What a single shop can change is whether its own share of it is visible in time to act on, or only visible afterwards in a waste bin.