Reducing Food Loss and Waste Could Feed More Than 7 Million Kenyans Every Year

Africa is the only region where hunger is on the rise. Today, more than 300 million people — one in four Africans — are hungry and if current trends persist, the continent will account for over 60% of the world’s hungry by 2030.

In Kenya, at least a quarter of the population faces severe food insecurity, even as up to 40% of the food produced (worth an estimated $578 million) is lost or wasted each year. This not only squanders scarce resources such as land, water, labor and energy but also fuels climate change, contributing to 21% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions.

While often discussed together, food loss and food waste are distinct: food loss occurs earlier in the supply chain — on farms or during handling, storage and transport — whereas food waste occurs later, at retail, in restaurants and in households.

A recent WRI report focused on Kenya’s key food value chains (maize, potato, fresh fruits and fish), has found that if Kenya achieves a 50% reduction in food loss and waste by 2030, it could: 

• Feed more than 7 million people annually with food that would otherwise be lost.
• Inject 36 billion Kenyan shillings ($279 million) back into the economy, boosting small farms and small business incomes. 

• Eliminate more than 7 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions significantly advancing Kenya’s climate goals and reducing pressure on biodiversity.

   

Despite Kenya’s commitment to reducing food loss and waste, WRI research found that progress has been slow due to limited data, weak coordination and insufficient financing for scalable solutions.

How Much and Where Do Losses and Waste Occur in Kenya?

Food loss and waste happen in all value chains, but we focused on specific foods for their importance as staples to the Kenyan diet (maize, potato, banana), nutrient-rich sources (fruits and fish) and commercially significant commodities (mango and avocado).

Due to long, complex supply chains and limited tracking data, it is challenging to ascertain exact figures for food loss. However, reported estimates indicate losses and waste ranging from 20% to 36% for maize, 19% to 22% for potato, 17% to 56% for mango, 15% to 35% for avocado, 7% to 11% for banana and 15% to 34% for fish.

While food loss and waste occur at all stages, critical points differ by commodity: Harvesting, retail and wholesale for potato, fruit and fish; drying and storage for maize; and processing for fish. The primary causes are inefficient harvesting, rough handling during packaging and transportation, limited storage and outdated processing methods for fish.

Innovations Can Reduce Food Loss and Waste

One of the most effective strategies Kenya can adopt to reduce food loss and waste is scaling up the use of proven technologies and innovations across the entire food value chain. These include improved harvesting tools, appropriate fishing gear, drying technologies, insecticides, fruit fly traps, better storage facilities (e.g., hermetic bags, silos, light-diffused rooms), cold chains and decentralized processing for perishables. Process innovations also improve supply-chain efficiency by connecting farmers to reliable markets through aggregation, contract farming and traceability systems, which track foods from farm to table.

However, the adoption of new technologies depends on proper training for farmers and value chain actors. Traditional methods — such as long-used harvesting practices — are deeply ingrained, making farmers hesitant to change. Some technologies, such as hermetic grain storage bags, can significantly reduce losses but remain less affordable than widely used polypropylene bags.

Cold chain systems, while effective, are often ill-suited to small farmers. Process innovations, such as contract farming and warehouse receipt systems, also face low acceptance due to mistrust stemming from side-selling, past negative experiences, and weak enforcement. Similarly, small farm processing initiatives, though promising, struggle with high marketing costs and limited reach, making it hard to sustain operations at a commercial scale.

Moving from Commitments to Action

Despite Kenya’s commitment to reduce food loss and waste, as the country has signed on to multiple national and global sustainability targets, the country lacks a robust mechanism for monitoring it, which hinders efforts to understand its scale, underlying causes and effective solutions. This gap presents a major bottleneck in identifying priorities and implementing targeted interventions.

Here are three key strategies that can help Kenya and other African countries reduce food loss and waste:

1) Strengthen Measurement of Food Loss and Waste Magnitudes, Hotspots and Causes

Like many countries, Kenya lacks disaggregated data on where losses happen and why. What gets measured gets managed. Without accurate data, it is challenging to establish national targets, implement effective interventions and measure progress. Developing a standardized system for tracking food loss and waste across the value chains is critical. This includes investing in data collection tools, training stakeholders, and integrating food loss and waste metrics into national agricultural and food systems reporting. WRI and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations are designing practical tools to measure and report food loss and waste in ways that reflect on-the-ground realities — small, scattered farms, seasonal harvests and complex supply chains. For Kenya and other African countries, these tools could be game changers in the fight against hunger, food loss and food waste.

2) Scaling Investment in Proven Food Loss and Waste Solutions and Practices

WRI’s research demonstrates that many proven technologies and practices exist to reduce food loss and waste in the selected value chains. However, without greater awareness and sufficient financing, most of these solutions remain small-scale and underused. Building capacity in areas such as pre-harvest checks, harvesting methods, drying, storage, hygiene, transport and aggregation is critical, and successful models — like maize cob-and-grain business hubs — should be scaled up.

Lessons from export value chains, including contract farming, farmer aggregation and cold storage, can also be adapted for domestic markets. At the consumer level, public education campaigns, school programs and retailer partnerships can help shift habits. Encouraging portion control, proper food storage and redistributing surplus food are practical steps to cut waste at the household and retail levels.

The World Bank estimates it will take $30 billion to $50 billion to halve food loss and waste by 2030, yet by 2020, only $1.1 billion had been invested. Closing this gap demands bold public–private partnerships and sustained financing — from seed to long-term capital — to deliver farm-to-fork reductions, save resources and cut emissions. At the same time, food loss and waste solutions, such as cold chains, reliable energy and improved handling, must be tested for real-world fit, affordability and trade-offs to ensure they are effective in local contexts.

3) Advance Policy and Coordination

Kenya needs holistic food strategies that move beyond sectoral approaches to systemic solutions, with food loss and waste at the center. Policy shifts must be evidence-based — grounded in accurate measurement of FLW across supply chains, an understanding of local drivers, and clear cost–benefit analysis of interventions, including potential trade-offs. Supportive policies for food donation and redistribution are also critical. To deliver impact, Kenya should strengthen implementation of its National Strategy on Postharvest Loss and Waste by operationalizing a national food loss and waste committee with clear mandates, county-level links and a dedicated budget, while also mainstreaming food loss and waste into its nationally determined commitments and sector plans as a lever for food security and climate action.