In Italy you waste 8.1 million tonnes of food per year: the impact and role of technology

In Italy, approximately 8.1 million tonnes of food are thrown away every year. A phenomenon that represents a loss of food, but also of resources used to produce and distribute it. This is the starting point that photographs the dimension of food waste in our country, and that the Too Good To Go platform, committed to reducing the phenomenon, wanted to tell in anticipation of the International Day of Awareness on Food Loss and Waste, which occurs on 29 September.

According to Eurostat data, precisely 8,127,009 tons of food are wasted, or over 257 kg every second. The cost is not limited to food, but includes the waste of water and soil, energy and all the resources used to produce it, transform it and bring it to the consumer. Considering the 925.2 tons of food wasted every hour, the resources used to produce it and which are not valorised correspond, according to Too Good To Go's estimates, to approximately 308 Olympic swimming pools of water and 373 football fields of soil. Given this scenario, in 2024, according to the WWF, food waste was associated with approximately 10% of greenhouse gas emissions generated by human activities.

The theme brought to attention by the platform is that even a daily gesture can help reduce the amount of food that ends up thrown away, and technology comes to the rescue. From 2019 to today, the Too Good To Go app has helped save 37 million meals in Italy, putting commercial activities and companies in the food sector in contact with consumers and allowing products at risk of being thrown away, but still good, to be given a second life. In 2025 alone, around 8 million meals were saved, equivalent to over 15kg of food saved every minute through the app. A result made possible by a community of over 13 million people who have downloaded the app and a network of over 26 thousand partner businesses who use it to enhance their surpluses.