Across sectors, geographies and cultures, humanity wastes an unfathomable amount of perfectly edible food. We throw away over 1 billion tonnes of food annually, amounting to a financial loss of US$1 trillion every year.
Food waste has always been a pernicious problem, but its also a solvable one. As part of the Food Waste Breakthrough an initiative that aims to halve food waste by 2030 and cut global methane emissions by 7 per cent established technology companies and digital startups are harnessing the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to solve some of the worlds most intractable food waste dilemmas.
The solutions theyve developed are both effective and easy to adopt, helping individuals and businesses tackle challenges that range from reducing the food waste of a commercial kitchen to clearing out a home fridge. In the years to come, technologies like these could be essential tools in delivering on the Food Waste Breakthroughs ambitious targets.
No matter what its use, the environmental impact of AI remains substantial. UNEPs research shows that the data centres powering AI consume vast amounts of electricity and water and rely on minerals that are often mined unsustainably. In order to avoid increasing fossil fuelgenerated greenhouse gases, it is essential for these data centres to integrate renewable energy sources into their operations. A resolution adopted in December 2025 by the United Nations Environment Assembly encourages Member States to minimize the potential ecological harm of AI, even as they harness its environmental benefits.
But given AIs abilities to detect patterns in data and use them to predict future outcomes the technology has tremendous potential to enhance efficiencies within food systems. Directed toward the problem of food waste, AI can be used to help governments, businesses and individuals ensure that more of the food we produce is eaten, not thrown away.
Prompting our way to zero waste
Many people have already come to rely on AI assistants to help them with everyday tasks. But with careful guidance, they can also help ensure we eat more of the food we buy.
UNEP is working with Google Gemini on how we can call upon AI to help cut food waste at home, such as how a series of prompts could help families improve their own household food systems. Here are some to try:
- Can you ask me a series of questions to understand which foods I waste the most?
- Why do I waste these?
- Can you give me practical tips or habits I can integrate in my shopping, cooking and storage routines to help me to address my key drivers of food waste?
We wanted to make this process positive and practical, explains Clementine OConnor, UNEPs Sustainable Food Systems Programme Management Officer. Everyone thinks they dont waste food. Starting a conversation with an AI chatbot to ask these questions makes this personal for people. Critical questions like these get people thinking about their own behaviours, and how small adjustments can save them money and cut their climate impact.
Using AI to keep food out of landfills
Food waste is a major component of landfills, where it produces up to 14 per cent of the worlds methane a greenhouse gas 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Separating organic waste and diverting it composting is vital to bringing down these emissions, but AI has the potential to slash the amount of food that we throw away to begin with. Thanks to its ability to quickly identify large volumes of waste, calculate costs and analyse complex food systems, strategically deployed AI could change our relationship with uneaten food, both in the food sector and in the home.
One company tackling this problem in the United States is Mill, which makes a household food recycler that dries and grinds food scraps into compost so they never make their way into the trash; according to the company, households and businesses using Mill have already kept around 4.5 million kilograms of food waste out of landfills.
Indoor composting is great for urban households, especially since 70 per cent of food consumption occurs at the urban level. But as OConnor points out, Mills inbuilt AI also generates data that can influence user behavior, motivating people to produce less waste to begin with. You can use their app to track how your food waste evolves over time, week by week, and this data element is key to helping people reduce their food waste, she explains. Once people become aware of how much they usually waste, theyre incentivized to try to reduce it.
Meanwhile tech-forward social enterprises like Too Good to Go and FoodCloud target both consumers and businesses, connecting the two in order to reduce the amount of edible food wasted in the food service and retail sectors. Too Good to Gos app available in Europe, North America and Australia allows users to collect discounted surprise bags of unsold food from local businesses, while its AI-powered software lets retailers track, manage and redistribute food that would otherwise go to waste. FoodCloud uses AI tools embedded in its app, Foodiverse, to help retailers manage donations of surplus food to be distributed to charities and community groups across the UK and Ireland. Too Good to Go claims to have saved more than 500 million meals from going to waste since the company was founded in 2016, while FoodCloud reports that more than 300 million meals have been redistributed thanks to its app.
While many consumer-facing food sharing apps are based in the Global North, OConnor points out that the food retail sector worldwide has begun using AI technology to minimize excess stock and incentivize customers to buy products before they expire. Thailands largest supermarket chain is using an AI system called Smartway to trigger dynamic discounts on food nearing its expiry date, as well as to improve the accuracy of ordering. Meanwhile a Brazilian startup called Aravita is using AI tools to analyze consumer demand for fresh produce, helping supermarkets manage their purchasing and reduce the surplus that leads to waste.
Maximizing profit and minimizing food waste
In commercial kitchens as in retail, reducing food waste means maximizing profit, and technology is being harnessed to do both. Winnow makes a kitchen waste system equipped with AI tools that help chefs make the most of their food resources across the hospitality sector, where an estimated US$100 billion worth of food is wasted every year. The companys consoles are installed over bins in over 3,000 commercial kitchens around the world, recording images of discarded food as it is thrown away; Winnows AI model then identifies the type of food, analyzes it by weight and cost, and uses this data to provide insights into waste reduction strategies on a kitchen-by-kitchen basis.
Food waste is just really difficult to measure, says David Jackson, Director of Marketing at Winnow. But we say that what gets measured, gets managed. The company works with hotels all over the world, including chains like Hilton, Accor and Marriott. In 2023 Winnow partnered with UNEP and Hilton as part of the Green Breakfast initiative, which cut post-consumer waste in the 13 participating hotels by an astounding 62 per cent over a four-month period.
In all of these tech-driven initiatives, the important thing is to not make people feel guilty about food waste, because the science shows that it doesn't change behavior, says OConnor. AI and other technological solutions can make people feel good about the things they're already doing, and motivated by the new habits they can adopt. These can lead to quick climate wins, all while helping families save money.
Zero Waste Day 2026, held annually on 30 March, is focused on food waste. Jointly facilitated by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), Zero Waste Day calls on people, governments and organizations around the world to take concrete action to prevent waste, advance circular solutions and strengthen zero-waste food systems.
As the worlds leading environmental authority, UNEP works to prevent food waste and mitigate methane emissions by adapting and scaling proven solutions, as well as promoting global collaboration on the topic.At COP30 in Belm, Brazil, UNEP and its partners launched the Food Waste Breakthrough an initiative to halve food waste by 2030, cutting methane emissions by up to 7 per cent as part of efforts to slow climate change.
