Policy, People, Practice: A Look into Food Waste & Loss (FLW) Reduction in Japan

Written by Andrew Smith, M.S. Agriculture, Education & Communication, University of Florida

In 2015, the United States E.P.A and USDA announced a joint goal of reducing food loss and waste by 50% nationally, by the year 2030. In 2021, the EPA aligned the food waste portion of this goal with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 12.3, a target which would accomplish a similar goal of halving food waste per capita by 2030.

So just how much progress has been made towards this goal in the United States?

As it turns out, we can’t get an accurate answer.

Among challenges cited by the EPA/USDA in meeting this goal, and more immediately, providing up-to-date baseline statistics about food waste in the U.S. to measure progress, is a lack of nationally representative data about food waste in the first place. While efforts have been made by the USDA, EPA, and ReFed to improve national data gathering and estimations to this effect, these limitations alone add to the complexity in understanding the extent and consequence of food waste in the United States (EPA, USDA, 2024).

Food Waste Reduction In the U.S.

In 2016, 328lbs of food was wasted per person annually in the U.S.

The target of this goal is to reduce food waste by 50% down to 164lbs per person annually. However – based off of the most recent available report from the E.P.A. in 2019, we’ve actually moved away from that goal in the U.S.

In 2019, 4 years after the initial goal of 50% reduction in food waste by 2030, that number increased to 349lbs annually per person, reflecting a 6% increase in food waste per person annually since the baseline year of 2015. Data beyond this year has not been made available by the EPA/USDA (EPA, 2025), due to the limitations mentioned above.

While the COVID-19 global pandemic strained supply lines, raised costs, and amplified food insecurity, it may have led to a decrease in food waste as families placed new focuses on planning purchases and learning cooking skills (ReFED, 2021). It could be argued that within American households there was a positive shift in behaviors towards food and reducing food waste, as well as awareness about economic and environmental impacts of food waste (Borghesi and Morone, 2022).

Food Waste Reduction In Japan

So why is it that countries abroad, such as Japan, are not only able to continue progressing towards similar goals of a 50% reduction in food waste by 2030, but to excel, and reach that goal far in advance of the pledged timeline?

The answer may lie within a country’s policies, people and practices.

In 2020, the Japanese Government set its own target of reducing total food waste across the country by 50% by 2030.

Japan met this goal – 8 years ahead of schedule in 2022 (WEF, 2025).

This was made possible through a combined effort between government bodies from the National to Local level, the private sector, and individual households working in unison to address food waste and create solutions to reduce it sustainably. These efforts have been so successful, particularly in the business sector, that the Japanese Government has expanded this goal to 60% food waste reduction for the business sector by 2030.

Japan’s Food Loss and Waste Policy

As a foundation to assessing and addressing food waste, Japan is one of the few countries that carries out impact assessments of its Food Loss & Waste (FLW) policies and campaigns. These assessments and associated data led to the establishment of infrastructure, thorough guidance and reporting practices through the Act on Promotion of Food Loss and Waste Reduction (2019) to calculate a more accurate estimate of food waste across each sector (Japanese Consumer Affairs Agency, 2025).

This Act also established an important need; to change behaviors and attitudes towards food and raise an awareness around the importance of not letting it go to waste. This resulted in the addition of the 1st Basic Policy on Promotion of FLW Reduction (Rev. 2025), providing a general framework for local governments to enhance FLW policies, efforts and programs.

The 1st Basic Policy resulted in practices encouraged at the government, private business and household level, all with an emphasis on individual responsibility to understand and reduce FLW, versus a “not my problem” mindset. A local government’s responsibilities are based around facilitation, awareness and promotion of businesses and programs working to reduce FLW, sponsoring events to encourage FLW and monitoring food stockpiles during emergencies to ensure efficient use.

The government’s role of facilitation, awareness and support allowed the private sector and individual households to make large reductions in FLW. Businesses made tremendous progress and met their goal early through guidance programs and technical assistance in understanding economic and environmental impacts of FLW. Practices encouraged include the use of imperfect commodities, greater efficiency in expiration date extension, labeling and product deliveries (similar to what we are currently seeing in the US with the Food Date Labeling Act), reservations for sales of seasonal commodities resulting in less over-harvesting, encouraging the introduction of “small portion” options of high waste products, and sell-out discounts or awards for businesses working hard to reduce FLW.

At the individual household level, a collective solution mindset was built up and reinforced to give people a sense of personal responsibility towards reducing FLW, with guidance revolving around adjustments people can easily make within their everyday lives to establish long-term sustainable routines. Practices such as planning meals before shopping to avoid over-purchasing, using all parts of a food before throwing it away, ordering less when eating out and donating leftover food or composting it whenever possible are things that anyone can work into their routine.

The establishment of roles and responsibilities for each sector along with the support of local government bodies led to the successful achievement of 50% FLW reduction in the business sector by March 2025. The Japanese Government established the 2nd Basic Policy on Promotion of FLW Reduction (Rev. 2025), which revised the target to 60% for the business sector, and expanded upon previous guidance and support through additional measures being encouraged to ensure the government sector and individual households would achieve and sustain this goal.

As FLW reduction began to pick up momentum, the 2nd Basic Policy created an official title and campaign for the goal’s three focus areas of FLW reduction, promoting food donations, and ensuring food access; the “Food Circle Project” or Shokunowa in Japanese promoted a greater sense of community in the fight against FLW. Shokunowa aims to increase the public’s FLW education and improve trust in food donation systems, like food share apps and food banks, providing guidelines and local ‘supporters’ who encourage, promote and provide technical assistance to locals who have questions about FLW, further heightening a community’s connection to the national initiative. This came alongside additional surveying methods and regular reporting on progress reflecting a communities reduction of FLW – being able to see the result of your communities collective work is inspiration to reduce FLW in itself.

Two Cultures; One Goal

You may be reading this and thinking –

“We do a lot of this in the United States as well – why aren’t we seeing progress?”

Societal differences can help explain some of this discrepancy. Japanese culture can be tied deeply to Shintoism – a religion reflecting a deep reverence and respect for nature, including respect for food. Even a majority of those who don’t identify as religious still incorporate Shinto practices into their everyday lives and routines – 50%-70% of Japanese people report incorporating shinto practices into their life (Statista, 2023) – this can include Washoku & Shun, or ‘seasonal eating,’ that collectively reduces pressure on the food industry to produce certain foods year-round, rather opting to consume produce that changes with the seasons.

Japan also has a very strong national policy on food waste and loss reduction. This dictates processes down to the local government level. While we have Federal laws in the U.S., FLW reduction often falls to the State and Local governments, leading to less cohesive strategies across states. Additionally, strategies to reduce waste in the U.S. are often aimed at the consumer level since that is where most waste is found – versus in Japan, where the mid-level processing/business sectors were found to produce the most food waste.

Between a societally-inherent cultural respect for food and strong, unified national policy, it makes sense that Japan sees higher participation in FLW reduction across its sectors and communities than the United States. But what is clear is that the United States is growing its awareness and finding new ways to approach FLW reduction in diverse ways – campaigns to raise awareness like the NRDC’s Save the Food (2025) aim to educate consumers and change behaviors towards food. Or the Farm to School Programs that aim to connect farms directly with community buyers to reduce over-buying and long transportation distances while increasing nutrition in schools. Local, State and Federal laws are increasingly requiring FLW reduction practices like food donation (Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act, 1996) and composting programs, or even outright banning food waste disposal by businesses that dump over a certain limit in landfills (Commercial Food Material Waste Disposal Ban, Massachusetts, 2014).

We can meet our goal of 50% food waste reduction in the United States – through adjusting our routines and behaviors in our daily lives we can move the needle, through our communities we can make a difference and advocate for change, but we can only do it, if we do it together as a nation.

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