Israel, a country of wasted abundance
I am a mother, a consumer, and a former restaurateur. Three different perspectives, one conclusion: in Israel, food is wasted without restraint.
I have seen Saturday nights after Shabbat when trash bins overflow with barely touched dishes, grocery carts piled too high and pushed by exhausted families, and professional kitchens where entire trays of untouched food are discarded at the end of service. Over time, I realized that this was neither a series of individual oversights nor a matter of private behavior. It is a system. A culture. An economy.
The 2024 report by the organization Leket makes it possible to measure the scale of this disaster with precision. In a post with an unambiguous title — “Leket Founder Says Israel Needs To Rethink the Culture of Food Waste” — the organization sounds the alarm and brings together data that can no longer be ignored.
In 2024, 2.6 million tons of food were thrown away in Israel, representing 39% of national food production. The economic value of this waste reached 26.2 billion shekels, the equivalent of 1.3% of GDP. At the household level, this amounts to 10.8 billion shekels wasted every year, or nearly 11,000 shekels per family.
These figures are not abstract. They reveal something profound about our relationship with food.
Fear of “not enough” and abundance as identity
There is in Israel an old, almost instinctive fear: the fear of shortage. It is rooted in Jewish history, particularly in the memory of the Shoah, and for a long time it produced understandable reflexes. But pushed to extremes, it has turned into a caricature.
People buy too much, just in case. They cook more than necessary. They open too many packages. Abundance has become a marker of hospitality — sometimes even of social respectability. But when abundance is no longer thought through or managed, it inevitably produces mountains of leftovers.
This is the first mechanism of food waste: overbuying driven by fear of shortage. This reflex is understandable in a culture where abundance is also a form of protection.
But once the food has been purchased, cooked, and placed on the table, another logic takes over — a far more troubling one.
In Israel, the problem is not only what we buy in excess, but what we do afterward with that surplus. There is no strong sense of obligation to consume it. There is no real sense of responsibility for what is thrown away. Food loses its moral status once it has fulfilled its symbolic function: reassuring us, showing that there is enough.
Buying too much out of fear may be understandable.
But in that case, one should eat what was bought.
Here, throwing food away raises no questions.
Food is treated as disposable, without guilt, discomfort, or hesitation. It becomes a reflection of the status many seek to display — that of those who do not need to count because they have more than enough. And this is where something breaks: waste is no longer explained by fear, but by indifference, or even a form of defiance.
Throwing away at full price
At this point, two drivers of food waste are clear: we buy too much out of fear of shortage, and we have no problem throwing away what we have bought.
But there is a third factor, rarely named and yet decisive.
One could imagine accepting the idea of buying more than necessary, on the condition of paying less. Surplus could be acknowledged, rationalized, adjusted through price. This is what many countries do, using differentiated pricing or end-of-day sales.
In Israel, the opposite happens.
Not only do we buy too much.
Not only do we throw food away without scruple.
But we throw away food that was purchased at full price.
This is what makes the economic value of waste explode. It is not only a matter of quantity; it is a matter of price. We discard food bought at full cost, in a country where food prices are among the highest in the developed world. We waste expensively.
Buying discounted food — on sale or promotion — is often perceived as an admission of poverty. This silent but powerful social distinction explains why unsold food is spontaneously seen as “for the poor,” and why so many restaurants prefer to throw food away rather than lower their prices.
Food waste is socially acceptable.
Economic rationality is not.
Fear, again and always
Another factor must be added to these mechanisms: fear. But not the fear of shortage — the fear of poisoning.
In Israel, the date printed on food packaging largely governs eating behavior. It is not perceived as an indication, but as an absolute boundary. A product approaching its expiration date is no longer considered potentially edible, but potentially dangerous. Many people throw food away even before the stated date, adding an unnecessary safety margin to dates that are already highly conservative.
This fear took root in the early 2000s following the Materna affair. A misformulated infant formula, lacking an essential vitamin, caused the death of two babies. The Ministry of Health, directly implicated at the time, responded with a policy of hyper-precaution and zero risk that has profoundly shaped public attitudes.
The Materna case has no direct link to food waste. But it established a lasting culture of fear. Since then, expiration dates have become a psychological red line, far beyond what science justifies.
In most developed countries, consumers are taught to distinguish between safety dates and quality dates. They are encouraged to look, smell, and taste. In Israel, the opposite is true: fear prevails, and food is thrown away for almost any reason.
The Leket report makes this clear: most of the food thrown away is perfectly edible.
In many countries, lowering prices toward the end of the day is one of several tools used to reduce food waste. In Israel, this practice remains marginal. Initiatives exist, but resistance is strong: it is often preferable to throw food away rather than sell it for less.
Dynamic pricing is not a miracle solution. But its rejection illustrates a broader logic — a refusal to adapt prices even when doing so could prevent waste.
Israel: a country of charity, not food justice
While other countries have developed genuine national policies to combat food waste, Israel has chosen a different path.
Leket rescues part of the surplus. Latet redistributes another portion through food packages. But the very existence of these large NGOs reveals a major political fact: the state has no food policy. It allows brands to sell their products at exorbitant prices while externalizing the management of unsold goods. It gives up on creating competition that could lower prices. It chooses charity where justice is needed.
The forbidden link: massive waste and massive poverty
According to the latest report by Latet, 2.7 million people currently live in food insecurity in Israel. At the same time, the country throws away 26 billion shekels’ worth of food every year.
How is this possible?
Because they are not the same people.
Those who throw food away are often those who can afford to buy too much.
Those who lack food are those who never have access to this excess.
Yet these two realities tell the same story: a food system that is deeply unjust, opaque, and irrational.
What needs to be done — now
The solutions exist. What is missing is the political will to implement them.
- Introduce price-adjustment mechanisms to limit surplus and reduce waste.
- Allow and encourage the resale of unsold food instead of condemning it to the trash.
- Create discounted “imperfect” product sections, accessible to everyone and free of stigma.
- Restore rationality to the management of expiration dates by clearly distinguishing safety from quality.
- Build a genuine national policy to fight food waste — one that does not rely exclusively on NGOs.
Israel does not lack food.
It lacks food justice.
