Food Waste and Hunger in America by the Numbers

Right now, about 38 million Americans do not have enough to eat. That's one out of every eight people. Two out of every three Americans are at risk of not having enough food at some point in their lives.

40-50% of all food produced or imported into the U.S. for the purpose of feeding people is ultimately wasted, totaling approximately 180 billion pounds per year. The USDA has estimated that at least 32 billion pounds of that food waste is recoverable.

Ending hunger in America would require approximately 12 billion pounds of food per year, but currently only about 2.5 billion pounds of that recoverable food is being saved and used to help needy people.

It would cost about $4 billion per year to save and distribute enough food to end hunger in America, while not addressing the hunger problem costs an estimated $90 billion per year in additional illnesses, crime, lost productivity, etc.

With your help, we can continue increasing the quantities of food we save and supply to churches and charity agencies to feed hungry people across West Michigan.