Why the Swiss waste more food than they think 

Each Swiss resident discards an average of around CHF600 worth of edible food every year. Illustration: Kai Reusser / SWI swissinfo.ch

Despite years of awareness campaigns and a national project to reduce waste, large amounts of edible food go directly from Swiss kitchens to the trash.

On a foggy Tuesday morning near Fribourg, cars pull into the local waste facility. Boots open. Bags thump onto the concrete. Residents sort quickly between cardboard, metal and glass, the visible end of the recycling system.

What’s missing is the household waste, usually discarded closer to home. And what’s inside those bags isn’t clear from the outside. But federal researchers have an idea.

Every ten years, federal authorities commission a study in which researchers open thousands of discarded rubbish bags across the country. They sort, weigh and classify the contents, down to individual food items. The data forms the basis of Switzerland’s Monitoring der Lebensmittelverluste reportExternal link: a document of the nation’s food waste. 

While the latest survey from 2025 shows a drop in household waste, Switzerland’s numbers remain high, and the country is far behind its goals for reducing the amount of edible food that is thrown away.

“If food barely hurts the wallet, people tend to waste more”

Claudio Beretta, environmental scientist, ZHAW

“We are not on track,” says Claudio Beretta, an environmental scientist who has studied food waste in Switzerland for more than a decade and served as lead author of the latest food waste report. “The dynamics are going in the right direction, but they are still much too small.” 

For years, many reduction efforts focused on areas that were easier to regulate and measure, such as retail and food production. But research increasingly shows that the largest environmental impact and the greatest remaining potential for reduction lie in private kitchens.

Financial and environmental costs 

Waste happens in each part of the food system: at farms, during processing, in transportation, at stores and in homes. The Swiss government pledged in 2017 to halve avoidable waste by 2030. Since then, the country has reduced waste by only 5% across the entire food system. 

According to the latest monitoring report, the amount of food found in household rubbish bags has fallen by around 12% over the past decade. But households still make up the largest share of the environmental impact of wasted food, since the food carries the emissions from the earlier steps.  

And the amount of waste in Swiss homes is still significant. Each Swiss resident discards an average of CHF600 ($755) worth of edible food every year. A 2024 report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) found that Switzerland generates about 119 kilograms of food waste on average per person at home, while the Western European average is around 80 kilos.  

A country that wastes because it can 

Part of the explanation for the excessive waste is wealth. Swiss households spend only 7–9% of their income on food. In countries where people spend more of their money on food, waste is much lower. 

“If food barely hurts the wallet, people tend to waste more,” Beretta says. 

One way to prevent waste is to limit purchasing. Ahead of Christmas, a survey External linkby the food-waste reduction company Too Good To Go found that 41% of people in Switzerland buy more food than they need around the holidays. 

Another way to reduce waste is to be more mindful of spoilage. Studies carried out by Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) found that around 20% of household food waste is caused by misunderstanding “best before” dates on packaging. These labels are not safety warnings, but quality guarantees from the manufacturer. Customers are supposed to check if food is good after those dates, rather than immediately assume it has gone bad.  

“The ‘use-by’ date is the safety date,” Beretta says. “Everything else is about quality. You can trust your senses.” 

Consumer expectations around produce appearance also cause waste. In Switzerland, many shoppers have grown accustomed to almost flawless-looking produce. Food that no longer looks “right” is more likely to be left on the shelves and thrown away. 

Swiss residents throw out about 119 kilograms of edible food per person at home. Kristian Foss Brandt

Some retailers have taken steps to limit their waste by easing cosmetic standards, freezing meat before its use-by date and improving logistics. According to FOEN, waste in retail has fallen by around 20%. But retail accounts for a small share of the total environmental impact of food waste, while households are responsible for nearly half. As a result, gains in stores do not offset the scale of waste from homes. 

For years, food waste reduction focused on sectors that were easier to regulate and measure. To prevent food waste in the home, advocates say it is vital to make it clear not just how waste happens, but where.   

“One of the biggest challenges is that people tend to underestimate the amount of food they waste in their own household,” says Ladina Schröter, head of household programmes at foodwaste.ch, an organisation that aims to reduce food waste in Switzerland. “It’s often easier to recognise the problem elsewhere than to acknowledge one’s own contribution.”

Rather than repeating general awareness messages, foodwaste.ch focuses on practical interventions, such as helping households plan meals, store food correctly and interpret date labels properly. The organisation aims to translate scientific findings into actionable measures. Research consistently shows gaps between people’s intentions and their actual behaviour when it comes to food waste.

“There is no single solution,” Schröter says. “Food waste happens at many points, and that means we need many small changes, repeated and reinforced.” 

Experiences from other countries suggest this strategy can work long-term. Where household food waste has declined, efforts tend to be sustained over time rather than launched as one-off campaigns. 

In the Netherlands, a national action week every year aligns municipalities, retailers, schools and chefs around the same messages to fight food waste. In the UK, the long-running “Love Food, Hate Waste” campaign combined public funding with household audits and regular measurement, showing consumers not just that waste occurs, but how it happens. 

Japan embedded food waste reduction in law, requiring municipal measurement and public involvement. Denmark turned food saving into a social norm, supported by food-sharing networks and companies such as Too Good To Go. 

What these approaches share is not a single policy or idea, but consistency. Investment is sustained, messages repeat and efforts scale. Switzerland, by contrast, has often piloted strong initiatives without committing to them nationally. 

What remains unresolved 

Back at the waste facility near Fribourg, when asked what would help her waste less food, one woman unloading her bags says, “I think I’d have to go shopping more often, but buy smaller quantities each time.”

It is a simple answer that mirrors much of what the data shows: household decisions, including how much people buy, store and plan, shape waste across the entire food system.

Switzerland still has time to meet its 2030 target. Whether it does so will depend less on raising awareness than on tackling household food waste systematically, through sustained policies, funding and long-term engagement rather than one-off campaigns.

Why household food waste matters for the climate

Across the entire food system, avoidable food waste in Switzerland amounts to around 310–330 kg per person per year. About 35% of this waste occurs at household level.

Across the entire food system, avoidable food waste in Switzerland generates an estimated 500,000–700,000 tonnes of CO₂-equivalent emissions per year.

According to FOEN, food waste accounts for around 14% of the environmental burden of Switzerland’s food system.

Food wasted at household level is especially climate-intensive, because all emissions from farming, processing, transport and refrigeration have already occurred.

Wasting one kilogram of meat causes 20–30 times more greenhouse-gas emissions than wasting one kilogram of vegetables.

Sources: FOEN; ETH Zurich life-cycle assessments; UNEP. 

Edited by Gabe Bullard/sb