USDA ERS estimates of food loss are based mainly on inference. ERS develops supply and use balance sheets for over 200 individual commodities. In the Loss-Adjusted Food Availability (LAFA) data series, ERS takes the balance sheets for individual commodities, removes the inedible share (such as peach pits and asparagus stalks), and applies food loss assumptions at the retail and consumer levels to estimate food consumption and loss in the United States. Food loss at the consumer level includes losses in homes and in restaurants, schools, sports stadiums, and other away-from-home eating places. The underlying assumptions are from an array of sources, including grocery store supplier shipment and sales data and national food consumption surveys. The LAFA series is considered a work in progress because ERS continues to refine the underlying loss assumptions and estimates.
In 2010, ERS estimates that a total of 31 percent, or 133 billion pounds, of the 430 billion pounds of the available food supply at the retail and consumer levels went uneaten, with an estimated retail value of $162 billion. This translates into 141 trillion calories (kcal) of food available in the U.S. food supply but not consumed in 2010. Expressed on a per capita basis, food loss at the retail and consumer levels in 2010 totaled 1.18 pounds of food per person per day, with a retail value of $1.43.