Food Waste Factsheet
Background
How Food Waste Affects Farmed Animals
Tens of billions of land animals and hundreds of billions of aquatic farmed animals are raised and slaughtered for food each year, primarily in large-scale industrial farms where they are subject to systemic suffering. And a significant share of the animal products those animals are raised for is never ultimately consumed due to loss and waste throughout the supply chain, meaning they truly suffered for nothing. Globally, an estimated 20% of meat and dairy products and 35% of fish and seafood are lost or wasted (by weight), amounting to 18 billion land animals (primarily chickens) and likely hundreds of billions of aquatic animals (a figure that, while difficult to estimate precisely, reflects the enormous scale of aquatic animal production relative to terrestrial animals).
For advocates and researchers focused on animal welfare and other externalities of industrial animal agriculture, this presents a compelling opportunity. Many strategies aim to improve conditions for farmed animals, shift consumption patterns, or reduce public health and climate externalities of animal agriculture, and reducing food waste offers a complementary and often lower-barrier pathway. Reducing animal-product food loss and waste (FLW) can reduce the number of animals affected and/or improve their welfare, while often aligning with the economic and environmental priorities of businesses and governments.
Food Waste Pathways for Reducing the Scale of Industrial Animal Agriculture
Food loss and waste reduction can achieve these goals through three complementary pathways:
Reducing consumer demand for animal products. In many high-income countries, the largest share of food waste occurs at the household and food service level. When animal products are consumed rather than discarded, it displaces future purchases, reducing demand without requiring consumers to change what they eat. This also avoids substitution effects (e.g., shifting from beef to chicken) that can increase the total number of animals affected.
Improving supply chain efficiency. Reducing loss earlier in the supply chain — across farming, transport, processing, and retail — can reduce the number of animals being farmed. Food systems are often designed with excess production to account for expected losses; reducing those losses allows producers to operate with less buffer. While the ultimate net effect on production volumes depends on market dynamics (i.e., efficiency gains can lower prices and expand consumption, partially offsetting the reduction), even partial translation of efficiency gains into lower production would meaningfully reduce the number of animals farmed.
Advancing interventions that reduce loss and improve welfare simultaneously. Some food loss reduction strategies generate direct animal welfare co-benefits. Improvements in on-farm conditions, transport, handling, and slaughter can lower pre-slaughter mortality and reduce stress and injury, benefiting animals while also reducing losses.
Taken together, FLW reduction both lowers the total number of animals required and improves conditions within supply chains. The magnitude of these effects depends on how efficiency and cost savings propagate through the market, but even partial effects represent a meaningful and often underutilized lever for farmed animal advocacy.
Key Considerations
When evaluating, drafting or comparing public procurement related to purchase of food products, local context, political feasibility and the regulatory environment all influence what one considers “Better Practice.” With that caveat in mind, the following considerations indicate better and worse practices for public procurement policies.
Policies that can reduce the scale of animal production and/or improve their welfare span across species-specific interventions that reduce mortality (and food loss) by improving welfare—such as improving aquaculture and cattle transportation standards or vaccinating farmed birds against Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza—and broader policies that reduce all food waste, including animal product food waste, reducing demand for animal products, such as date label standardization and public funding for food waste prevention.
Many of these interventions align animal welfare with economic and environmental benefits. That they remain under adopted reflects familiar market failures, including benefits split across different actors, unpriced externalities, coordination problems, and up-front costs, which is why targeted policy and advocacy are needed to realize these gains.
1. Improving Aquaculture Standards
Today, aquaculture—farming of fish, shrimp, and shellfish—accounts for over half of global aquatic animal production by weight and is projected to be the main driver of growth in seafood production. This topic has already been discussed at length in CALF's Aquaculture Factsheet, but incorporating the concept of food loss into the policy and advocacy discussion could strengthen efforts.
On-farm mortality in aquaculture represents both tremendous suffering and production and food losses: animals that die prematurely waste feed, water, and inputs, reduce productivity, and require more animals to be farmed than would otherwise be necessary. The degree of loss (~35% by weight) is greater than that for meat and dairy, making aquaculture a high-impact area of focus for those working to solve FLW. The primary drivers of mortality include handling, water quality, algal blooms, temperature fluctuations, parasite infections, and disease, many of which are addressable through better policy and farm-level practice, creating natural common ground between food loss and animal welfare advocates.
Norway offers the most instructive regulatory template for reducing on-farm mortality. Its framework rests on three instruments: the Norwegian Animal Welfare Act (2009), which extends welfare protections to fish on equal legal footing with other animals; the Aquaculture Act (2005), which conditions operating licenses on welfare-conscious production; and the Aquaculture Operations Regulations, which set binding requirements for stocking density, water quality, disease response, and handling. Norway is likely the only country that mandates fish welfare training for all aquaculture workers, and is currently developing a consolidated welfare regulation expected by 2027 with explicit mortality-reduction targets (to ~5%), alongside a proposed financial penalty tied to premature fish death.
Critically, Norway's experience illustrates that strong legislation is necessary but not sufficient. Mortality rates have remained 14-17% in recent years, and the Norwegian Food Safety Authority’s (Mattilsynet’s) own 2024 audit findings identified persistent compliance gaps across its largest producers, even after launching a dedicated supervisory division that year. The lesson: meaningful enforcement requires mandatory data collection, public reporting, and real consequences tied to mortality outcomes. This model, with some potential improvements, can be impactful in regions where the governance gap is far larger. Asia produces 94% of farmed finfish (by count), yet most major producing countries have regulatory frameworks only on paper, with weak enforcement, low penalties, and few species-specific welfare standards.
Taken together, these gaps point to a standard for what effective aquaculture welfare legislation should look like: laws that (1) condition operating licenses on compliance with species-specific standards for stocking density, water quality, disease prevention and response, and animal handling; (2) mandate related training for all farm workers; and (3) require data collection and public reporting of mortality rates and the financial consequences tied to outcomes. Norway's three-instrument framework — the Animal Welfare Act (2009), Aquaculture Act (2005), and Aquaculture Operations Regulations — is among the most comprehensive of any major producing jurisdiction, and its proposed consolidated welfare regulation and lost-fish fee represent an emerging frontier of what stronger legislation can look like.
2. Cattle Transportation Standards
Cattle transport is a significant and underappreciated source of food loss, and the conditions that cause that loss are among the same ones that cause animal suffering. Stress during transport — from rough handling, overcrowding, extreme temperatures, and long journey times — causes cattle to metabolize their glycogen reserves before slaughter, leaving less available for normal post-slaughter acidification. The result is a higher proportion of dark, firm, and dry (DFD) beef: meat with elevated pH that spoils more quickly and commands significantly less at market. DFD incidence ranges from 1% to 50% of carcasses depending on seasonal, geographic, and management-related factors. Beyond DFD, transport-related dead-on-arrival (DOA) events and condemnations account for roughly 0.8-1.2% of harvest weight in US beef and dairy supply chains, and bruising affects 40–65% of carcasses, generating trim losses that are largely untracked.
Fitness-for-transport training to improve animal screening before loading, using low-stress handling, and managing vehicle conditions are among the most actionable interventions available. Improving transport decisions and conditions has the potential to reduce DOA and condemnation losses by 15-30% and prevent 20-40 million pounds of beef loss annually.
In the United States, no such training is mandatory. The primary federal law governing interstate livestock transport is the 28 Hour Law, first enacted in 1873 for rail transport. It prohibits confining livestock for more than 28 consecutive hours without unloading them for feed, water, and rest, but a June 2026 US Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found that the law does not address animals’ fitness to travel, vehicle and equipment conditions, driver training, or environmental conditions during transport, and that federal agencies lack clear authority to monitor compliance. Voluntary programs like the Beef Quality Assurance Transportation program fill some of the gap but are largely toothless, leaving the US weaker than several peer jurisdictions on transport welfare protections. The bipartisan Humane Transport of Farmed Animals Act, reintroduced in September 2025, would begin to address this by requiring USDA and DOT to develop a mechanism to monitor compliance with the 28 Hour Law and prohibiting interstate transport of livestock deemed unfit for travel.
The EU offers a slightly better alternative. Council Regulation (EC) No 1/2005 provides binding EU-wide rules on animal welfare during transport, including provisions on fitness for transport, transporter authorization and competence, journey planning, vehicle standards, space allowances, and journey and rest requirements across all EU Member States. However, these rules are over 20 years old, and advocates believe they don’t adequately factor in the latest welfare science and lack the species-specific standards animals need. In December 2023, the Commission proposed replacing this regulation with stricter rules, but the proposal remains in the EU legislative process.
In Canada, updated transport regulations took effect in 2020, with enforcement beginning in 2022, reducing maximum transport intervals and expanding fitness-for-transport requirements. A 2024 multi-country study found that regulations in all five jurisdictions examined (including the EU, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the US) remain insufficient or too vague in key areas, with none fully guaranteeing adequate protection during transport. New Zealand has gone furthest on maritime livestock transport: live exports for slaughter effectively ended in 2008, and the country has banned the export of all livestock by sea since April of 2023.
Taken together, these examples illustrate what effective livestock transportation legislation should do: (1) set enforceable vehicle, space, and environmental conditions; (2) limit how long animals can be kept in transit without being unloaded; (3) establish fitness-for-transport requirements that prohibit the movement of cattle unfit to travel; (4) mandate training and competency standards for workers involved in loading, transporting, and unloading cattle; (5) include robust inspection and compliance mechanisms; and (6) ban live exports. The EU's Council Regulation (EC) No 1/2005—despite its age and limitations—remains the most comprehensive binding framework among major jurisdictions, and New Zealand's effective ban on live exports by sea sets the gold standard for one of the most high-risk segments of livestock transport.
3. Bird Flu Vaccination
Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) represents one of the most direct intersections of food loss and large-scale animal suffering. From February 2022 to April 2025, the US outbreak resulted in the loss of 168 million farmed birds, with mortality rates often exceeding 75% in infected flocks. When the virus is detected, entire flocks must be culled to prevent further spread, a process that is simultaneously a massive food loss event and a source of acute animal suffering. The most commonly used depopulation method on large US industrial farms is ventilation shutdown plus heat (VSD+), which causes death by inducing heatstroke, a process that involves prolonged suffering. The human and economic costs are also significant: the US government has spent $1.8 billion on HPAI response since 2022, and American egg consumers paid an estimated $14.5 billion in higher prices between May 2024 and April 2025.
Vaccination offers a solution that prevents outbreaks before they occur and eliminates the need for mass culling. Because HPAI is now endemic in wild bird populations and follows seasonal migratory cycles, biosecurity improvements alone are insufficient, making vaccination widely regarded as the most promising preventive tool available.
The primary policy barrier to vaccination in the US is international trade. Vaccines can suppress symptoms without eliminating the virus, leading trade partners to restrict imports from countries that have vaccinated their populations. Critically, however, egg-laying hens (layers) and meat chickens (broilers) operate in largely separate supply chains, and layers account for the vast majority (77%) of HPAI losses. Since only 2.6% of US egg production is exported compared to 14.3% of broiler production (as of 2024), a vaccination program targeted at layers could in principle be designed to minimize disruption to meat exports. The primary obstacle is that trading partners may restrict imports based on a country's national vaccination and surveillance status rather than on supply-chain separation. Overcoming this requires robust surveillance systems that can demonstrate the absence of infection in vaccinated flocks, giving trading partners confidence.
In looking to successful vaccination policies, France offers the most instructive example. The country launched a mandatory preventive vaccination program for commercial ducks in October 2023. A CDC analysis estimated that the program contributed to a 96–99% reduction in total poultry outbreaks (not just ducks) compared to prior seasons, a striking contrast to non-vaccinating countries in Europe, which continued to experience widespread outbreaks over the same period. In the specific case of avian influenza, the EU has supported this at a policy level: EU Delegated Regulation 2023/361 enables member states to vaccinate while still moving vaccinated animals and their products, in line with the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH) international standards. The UK is also actively exploring vaccination, with a joint industry and cross-government vaccination taskforce established, and a May 2025 UK-EU agreement to work toward a common Sanitary and Phytosanitary area that will have implications for UK avian influenza controls.
Some countries, including Mexico, China, Egypt, and Vietnam, have historically used inactivated vaccines against avian influenza more routinely. In 2023, the WOAH World Assembly formally recognized vaccination as a complementary disease control tool, stipulating that it does not affect a country's HPAI-free status, provided surveillance demonstrates the absence of infection/ However, cost concerns and trade barriers continue to limit broader uptake, particularly among major exporters, providing an opportunity for focused policy engagement.
Taken together, these examples point to what effective avian influenza vaccination policy should look like. Ideally, a framework should require preventive vaccination and legally permit the continued movement of vaccinated animals and their products. If this isn’t viable, policy should distinguish between poultry supply chains with different export profiles to enable sector-specific vaccination and build robust surveillance to demonstrate absence of infection and maintain trade partner confidence. Together, France and the EU's Delegated Regulation 2023/361 represent the current best-practice model.
4. Date Label Standardization
Date labels—phrases like “use by,” “best before,” “best if used by,” “enjoy by,” and “sell by”—are used inconsistently across food packaging in countries with inadequate regulation. Some communicate quality, some communicate safety, and others, like “sell by,” serve stock-rotation purposes for retailers rather than consumer decision-making. In the US, more than 50 different phrases are in circulation, and 88% of Americans report throwing out food at or near the package date at least occasionally, driving the disposal of roughly 4.3 million tons of food annually at a cost of more than $21 billion. Standardizing labels in the US alone could divert 381,000 tons of food from waste annually at a net financial benefit of $1.92 billion.
Date-label confusion may be especially consequential for perishable animal products: research shows that consumers make more precautionary discard decisions for items like raw chicken and pasteurized milk than for less perishable foods, suggesting label confusion contributes meaningfully to avoidable waste of food whose production has already imposed costs on farmed animals.
The current Codex Alimentarius prepackaged food labeling standard (developed jointly by the FAO and WHO) distinguishes “best-before/best quality-before” from “use-by/expiration” dates, giving governments a reference point for harmonization. In the US, no federal standard exists outside of infant formula, and states have filled the gap unevenly. For example, California Assembly Bill 660, scheduled to take effect July 1, 2026 is the country’s first mandatory date label standardization law. At least nine other states have introduced similar bills since its passage, but many others have no regulation. The federal Food Date Labeling Act (FDLA), reintroduced in July 2025 with bipartisan support, would establish a voluntary standardized dual date-labeling scheme (“BEST If Used By” for quality and “USE By” for safety) for food products nationwide. The FDLA would also prevent the application of certain state laws that block the sale or donation of items after the quality date. This would further prevent food waste by enabling the sale and donation of these items, which are still safe to eat.
In Europe, the European Union already has a clearer baseline distinction between quality and safety date marking. Regulation 1169/2011 requires most prepacked foods to carry either a “use by” or “best before” date, subject to exemptions.The EU’s Farm to Fork Strategy further announced a revision of date-marking rules, though the timing of a formal proposal remains uncertain. In the United Kingdom, WRAP has pushed further through voluntary industry guidance, persuading major retailers to remove “best before” dates from fresh produce and shift dairy products from “use by” to “best before”, changes WRAP estimates could reduce UK household food waste by at least 350,000 metric tons per year if fully adopted.
Beyond the EU, the UK, and the US, date label regulation remains highly fragmented. Australia and New Zealand have adopted comparable two-label frameworks through Food Standards Australia New Zealand, while most other jurisdictions lack a clear quality/safety distinction or rely on voluntary industry practice, underscoring the need for broader international harmonization.
Taken together, a strong date label law should: (1) restrict labeling to two standardized phrases, one for quality, one for safety, and prohibit ambiguous terms like "sell by" in consumer-facing packaging; (2) be accompanied by consumer education to maximize behavioral impact; and (3) preempt restrictions on the sale or donation of food past its quality date. California's AB 660, which took effect in July 2026, and the EU's framework under Regulation (EU) No. 1169/2011 are the clearest existing models; the pending federal Food Date Labeling Act, if passed, would bring the US into alignment with these standards nationwide.
5. Public Funding for Food Waste Prevention
Preventing food waste requires sustained public investment in research, technology, and implementation — yet available funding remains far below what the problem demands. In the US and globally, existing support has leaned heavily toward recycling and organics infrastructure rather than upstream prevention, a significant gap given that prevention generally produces greater environmental and economic benefits and can reduce the avoidable production of animal products, reducing the scale of industrial animal agriculture.
UN SDG 12.3 calls for countries to halve per capita food waste at retail and consumer levels and reduce production and supply chain losses by 2030, but few jurisdictions have paired this ambition with binding targets and dedicated prevention funding. The EU is the clearest exception: the revised Waste Framework Directive (in force since October 2025) sets binding national FLW reduction targets, backed by Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe research funding, including €55 million allocated to food waste projects between 2021 and 2024.
The United States has made progress, but it falls well short of the need. Annual federal funding quadrupled from ~$31 million (2015–2020) to ~$135 million (2021–2025), largely driven by one time funding from the Inflation Reduction Act, yet this represents just 5% of the ~$3 billion in annual government support estimated to be needed. With IRA rollbacks underway, sustaining even current levels is uncertain. Several pending bills would address the gap: the bipartisan NO TIME TO Waste Act (2025), the Agriculture Resilience Act of 2025, and the bipartisan Reduce Food Loss and Waste Act each propose coordination mechanisms, dedicated research programs, or voluntary certification for businesses making measurable progress.
Globally, dedicated prevention funding remains rare beyond the EU, though the UNEP Food Waste Breakthrough (launched at COP30 with $3 million from the Global Environment Facility) represents a first step toward scaling prevention-focused investment in developing countries.
Taken together, these gaps illustrate what a strong policy ecosystem to increase public food waste prevention should look like: (1) set binding food waste reduction targets that create urgency and accountability; (2) dedicate funding explicitly to upstream prevention; and (3) support research, innovation, and implementation at a scale commensurate with the problem. The EU's revised Waste Framework Directive, backed by Horizon Europe funding, is the clearest current model, pairing binding national targets with dedicated prevention investment.
Conclusion
The examples listed here are among the most promising and timely, but policy advocates are encouraged to leverage FLW framing to advance other animal welfare improvements. This is a viable strategy in any case where a policy solution reduces mortality (and therefore food loss). FLW reduction is often less controversial and, in certain regions such as the EU, aligns with binding food waste reduction commitments, creating increased urgency and strengthening advocacy.
References
We would like to thank Sharyn Murray and Kumar Chandran of ReFED for their contribution to this factsheet.
Animal Welfare Institute, Humane Transport of Farmed Animals Act (2025)
AquaFeed, Norway Unveils New Aquaculture Strategy (2024)
Agriculture Resilience Act of 2025, H.R. 3077, 119th Cong. (2025)
CALF, Aquaculture Factsheet (2022)
California Department of Food and Agriculture, Food Date Labeling — Assembly Bill 660 (2024)
European Commission, EU Actions Against Food Waste (2025)
European Commission, Food Waste Reduction Targets — Waste Framework Directive (2025)
European Commission, Horizon Europe: Fair, Healthy and Environmentally Friendly Food Systems (2024)
Eurogroup for Animals, Transport Regulation (2024)
Fish Farming Expert, Norway Farmed Salmon Mortality Rate Fell Below 15% Last Year (2024)
Food Standards Australia New Zealand, Date Labelling on Food (2024)
Ministry for Primary Industries (New Zealand), Restrictions on Exporting Livestock (2023)
NO TIME TO Waste Act, H.R. 2883, 119th Cong. (2025)
Norway, Animal Welfare Act (2009)
Norway, Aquaculture Act (2005)
Norway, Aquaculture Operations Regulations (2008)
ReFED, A Funder's Guide to the Current State of Federal Funding for Food Waste Solutions (2026)
ReFED, Digging Into Date Label Policy in the U.S. (2024)
ReFED, Food Waste Policy Finder (2025)
ReFED, Insights Engine - Standardized Date Labels (2025)
ReFED and WWF, Upstream Food Loss Across the Beef and Dairy Supply Chains (2026)
Reduce Food Loss and Waste Act, S. 835, 119th Cong. (2025)
SDG2 Advocacy Hub, Champions 12.3: SDG Target 12.3 (2025)
We Are Aquaculture, Audits Highlight Knowledge Gaps in the Aquaculture Industry (2024)
We Are Aquaculture, Norway Plans New Animal Welfare Rules for Aquaculture from 2027 (2024)
WRAP, Food Date Labelling (2024)
Yaman, Robert, No, Bird Flu Isn't Over, The Optimist's Barn (Oct. 17, 2025)
Further Readings
Law / Policy | Topic | Species | Type of Act | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
TopicSpeciesRegulates information to consumer as it relates to the method of production of food products. View original text | Legislation | In force | ||
SpeciesAll animals Regulates the transport duration of live animals (by sea, by air, and road) by imposing minimum animal welfare standards during transport. View original text | All animals | Legislation | In force | |
Norwegian Aquaculture Act Norway SpeciesFish Regulates aquaculture facilities through a licensing system that allows for government inspection and requires the adherence of environmental standards. View original text | Fish | Legislation | In force | |
SpeciesProvides guidance aiming to harmonize the use of “best-before/best quality-before” from “use-by/expiration” dates on prepackaged food. View original text | Policy | In force | ||
SpeciesStandardizes expiration date labels. View original text | Legislation | In force | ||
New Zealand and Australia Food Standards Australia and New Zealand SpeciesStandardizes expiration date labels in Australia and New Zealand. View original text | Regulation | In force | ||
SpeciesEstablishes rules to reduce and treat waste, including food waste, in the EU. View original text | Legislation | In force | ||
SpeciesAllows the vaccination of poultry animals against the avian flu virus. View original text | Regulation | In force | ||
SpeciesEstablishes a national strategy to reduce food loss and waste through federal coordination, grants, food recovery infrastructure, data collection, and public education. View original text | Legislative proposal | Bill proposal |
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