NZ household food waste falls again

The survey – done in late July – found the average New Zealand household reported wasting 10.9% of the food they bought each week, back from 12.2% in the 2023 survey. This fall drove a drop in annual food waste per household (down to $1,364 from $1,510 in 2023) and a reduction in New Zealand’s overall food waste bill. This fell to $3 billion per annum from $3.2 billion (fall of 6.25%) despite marginal increases in weekly household food spend and the number of households.

Rabobank partnered with food rescue charity KiwiHarvest in early 2020, as part of the bank’s wider commitment to work alongside its rural customers to support sustainable food production and its global vison around global food security. Rabobank has commissioned research examining Kiwis’ food waste habits since 2017 – the four most recent editions of the research (2021,2022, 2023 & 2025) in collaboration with KiwiHarvest – to help raise awareness of this issue and, ultimately to reduce the volume of quality food we currently produce that ends up going to waste.

The latest drop in household food waste was the second consecutive fall recorded by the survey, following a reading of 13.4% in the 2022 survey.

KiwiHarvest CEO Angela Calver said it was encouraging to see food waste trending lower across recent years.

“It’s really pleasing to see things are heading in the right direction. However, this year’s estimated food waste, valued at $3 billion, is still too high and remains a major concern,” she said.

“At average annual waste of 10.9% per household, Kiwi households are effectively throwing away nearly six weeks’ worth of groceries each year.”

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Calver said with more Kiwi kids now living in households where food regularly runs out, demand for KiwiHarvest’s food rescue services had never been greater.

“Since the last food waste survey in mid- 2023, KiwiHarvest has increased the volume of food that we rescue by 52%, and we are now providing the equivalent of over 125,000 meals back into the community each week,’’ she said.

“With so many Kiwis in need, it’s crucial we continue to prioritise public education on food waste and ensure the amount of perfectly good food New Zealanders are wasting continues to fall.

“KiwiHarvest is committed to working with Rabobank and other partners to tackle this issue by empowering New Zealanders with practical information to help reduce food waste at home.”

Small improvements helping drive food waste lower, while Kiwis attitudes to, and knowledge of, food waste, were largely in line with 2023. Rabobank head of sustainable business development Blake Holgate said small improvements in a few key areas had helped drive the dip in estimated food waste recorded in the 2025 survey.

“The latest survey found there is now a larger group of Kiwis committed to addressing food waste with more saying they ‘strongly agree’ with statements including ‘I care about reducing food waste’ (33% strongly agree from 23%), ‘It annoys me when I waste food’ (38% from 30%), and ‘It annoys me when I see others wasting food’ (31% from 23%),” he said.

“The survey also found Kiwis’ knowledge of food production was on the rise with 37% saying they know ‘quite a bit’ or a ‘great deal’ about this topic, and this was showing up in growing food waste concerns related to the wasted efforts of farmers here in New Zealand and abroad.”

Holgate said these changes were filtering through to improvements in food waste related behaviours.