The country that prides itself on being one of the greenest and most sustainable in the world is competing for a different title — and it's winning for all the wrong reasons.
I once saw a perfectly good head of broccoli in the madaffald bin in my dorm's kitchen. Whole, unspoiled, and untouched, it had been thrown away — and this is not the first time I had seen perfectly edible food end up in the trash.
Denmark, the country that prides itself on being one of the greenest and most sustainable in the world, is competing for the title of "the EU country with the most food waste" and comes second. The bizarreness does not end there: Denmark sits almost at the top of this list, alongside countries such as Greece and Cyprus, and far from the other Nordics.
The broccoli in the bin begins to look less like an exception, and more like a sign of a deeper contradiction: how does a country known for sustainability end up wasting so much food?
That is how much food waste the average Danish resident generates per year — second in the EU, ahead of Greece, Portugal, Ireland, and 23 other countries. Most of it starts at home.
The chart below shows food waste per capita across EU countries in 2023, based on Eurostat data. Denmark is highlighted in amber. Only Cyprus — a small island whose figures are partly inflated by mass tourism — generates more per person.
By producing approximately 86.8 kilograms of food waste per person annually, only on the household level, Danes contribute a shockingly high amount of food waste. This far exceeds waste from retail (17 kg) and out-of-home consumption (13 kg) — and it sits well above the EU household average of 69 kg per person.
In a year, the CO₂ emissions from European food waste — as it decomposes in landfills — are equivalent to the totality of fossil fuel emissions of Spain. Reducing food waste is not only an ethical problem. It is a climate emergency.
In 2015, the United Nations General Assembly adopted 17 Sustainable Development Goals, including a target to halve per capita global food waste by 2030. All EU countries — Denmark included — are expected to reduce food losses along production and supply chains and cut consumer-level waste in half.
Food waste occurs at all stages of the supply chain, from production and retail to consumption. But it is the household level where Denmark's problem is most visible — and most personal.
In Denmark, household food waste has been steadily increasing over time. According to our estimates, if current patterns continue, annual food waste could exceed 120 kilograms per capita by 2030 — more than double the SDG target. Achieving the goal would require bringing per-capita household waste down to around 43 kg. The gap between trajectory and target is not a small administrative oversight. It is a structural failure.
Our regression model explains 85% of variation in food waste using income and food prices over 2014–2023
Disposable income's link to food waste is strongly statistically significant; food prices are only marginal
For every additional 1,000 kroner earned, food waste increases by about 1 gram per person — small, but it adds up
Studies suggest that food prices have an inverse relationship with food waste — meaning that waste levels are expected to decline, at least to some extent, following a rise in food prices, possibly signalling food insecurity. We had reason to believe economic factors play a consequential role in Denmark.
However, Denmark does not appear to follow this pattern. An analysis of food waste and food prices — measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) — shows no such relationship. Both have been rising gradually. Danes don't seem to be particularly concerned about food insecurity, even when food prices increase significantly, as seen during the surge following the COVID-19 pandemic.
In other words, higher prices do not lead Danes to waste less. The question is: why?
"Now that I'm not a student anymore and I have an income, I feel like I can easily buy the food I want to eat. I spend approximately 20% of my income on food."
— Shopper, local supermarket, AarhusWhen disposable income per capita is added as an independent variable, the results tell a more compelling story. Disposable income shows a positive relationship with food waste. For every additional 1,000 kroner earned, food waste increases by about 1 gram per person. This number may seem small, but it quickly adds up across Denmark's population — equivalent to roughly 60 large household garbage bins filled with discarded food.
Food CPI uses 2025 as the base year (2025 = 100) and measures relative price levels over time, calculated as the annual average of monthly data. A food CPI of 80, for instance, means food prices were about 20% lower than in 2025.
The result: both food waste and food CPI have been rising gradually. The correlation is positive — not the negative relationship theory would predict. Price signals, it seems, are not strong enough to change Danish consumption behaviour.
Most people in Aarhus supermarkets told us that groceries don't make up a large portion of their spending. The general mood was easy-going — people feel they can afford what they want, and waste a little, without it mattering much.
"They have like a surplus of things. People have enough resources, so it doesn't matter to them that much if they waste a little — they're not sensitive to the waste and the price."
— Interview participant, AarhusNiels, an elementary school teacher in Aarhus, was direct: "There are too many things to buy, and Danish people have too much money." He added that there is no food shortage in Denmark and that people's incomes are relatively high — meaning price rises have not meaningfully changed consumption habits.
Cultural patterns also play a role. Holiday consumption is a significant contributor: during Christmas and Easter, Niels noted, some Danes consume far more food than they normally would. "It's as if people know it's unhealthy but don't want to change," he said. "Some people even end up hospitalized because they eat too much."
Education is another missing piece. "Many of the children I teach don't know how to save food," said Niels. "They often don't store leftovers or think about eating them the next day. Even among well-off families, there is a lack of awareness around food waste — which may also reflect their parents' habits."
We visited both a high-end supermarket and a regular one in Aarhus to speak with shoppers. Most were surprised to learn Denmark ranks second in the EU — and most did not believe the figures represented them personally. But their explanations for the broader phenomenon consistently pointed to the same thing: wealth, habit, and upbringing.
Denmark is generally a very wealthy country. People have a surplus of things. If they waste a little, it doesn't matter to them — they're not sensitive to the price.
If you have less money, you have to be more considerate about what you buy. A greater income means you can afford a greater waste. That just makes sense.
I think it's something about how you were raised. I was always taught not to waste. But children today learn it in school now, which we didn't always do.
I didn't know Denmark was second in the EU at all. I think I waste about 30% of what I buy. I should make a schedule, but I fail to do that.
When you have a lot of money, you don't have to think about it. You just go out and buy something new when you don't want to use what's left in the fridge.
I have a high income, but I really try not to waste. I used to want to become a chef — so I know what I'm doing in the kitchen. I spend about 20% on food, and very little goes to waste.
What the professor's case underscores is something the data alone cannot fully capture: knowledge, skill, and habit matter just as much as income. High earnings do not guarantee waste — but without education and environmental consciousness, affluence tends to lower the perceived cost of throwing food away. In Denmark, that cost seems very low indeed.
Between 2017 and 2021, a national partnership between the Danish food industry, retailers, consumer organisations and government authorities reduced food waste by 17%. Denmark already knows how to fight this problem. The challenge is making it the norm — not the exception.
Annbritt Jørgensen, a Danish politician and founder of Skraldecaféen (Trash Café), leads the NGO that collects surplus food from businesses such as supermarkets and redistributes it to the community. ↳ Lin's interview content to be added here
Denmark is the birthplace of Too Good To Go, the app that connects consumers with surplus food from restaurants and shops at reduced prices. WeFood, operated by DanChurchAid, sells food past its best-before date at steep discounts — challenging the assumption that expiration dates mean inedibility. Both models show that changing how food is sold can change how much is wasted.
Food waste from private kitchens, canteens, and restaurants is collected nationally, then processed into biogas and manure — returning nutrients to agricultural fields and energy to the grid. What cannot be prevented from being wasted is at least made useful. Denmark's bio-waste collection scheme is among the most successful in Europe.
One Danish supermarket famously halved the size of its bread loaves to cut waste from over-purchasing. REMA 1000 eliminated bulk discounts that incentivise buying more than households need. These retail-level interventions target the structural causes of household waste — not just individual behaviour.
Buy small portions. Buy frequently. Check what you have before you shop. Freeze leftovers. Use yellow-sticker discounts on near-expiry products. Don't fill your basket with only perfectly shaped food. As the 81-year-old professor in our interviews demonstrates — knowledge and habit are just as powerful as price signals. The broccoli in the bin didn't have to be there.
Denmark has the tools, the institutions, and the awareness to be a global model on food waste — not just in how it handles waste after the fact, but in how it prevents it from happening at all. The data says the trajectory is wrong. The people we spoke to know why. The solutions exist. What remains is the will to make them the norm, not the exception.