The State That Wastes The Most Food In The US

Arizona's Grand Canyon Park was voted the country's best place to visit in 2026 by U.S. News & World Report. It's not the only title the Copper State was awarded that year — it also gained the rather dubious honor of generating the most food waste in the United States from the Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts. The team at the prestigious establishment used several sources, including studies by the University of California Davis and non-profit organization Mitre, to give Arizona an overall relative wastefulness score of 100.00/100. 

Among the statistics that led to that conclusion were that each person in Arizona wasted 1,025 pounds (465 kilograms) of food every year, "nearly thrice the national 2022 weighted average," according to the UC Davis study. Around eight cups of food waste were thrown away each week in the state, a Mitre and Gallup survey found.

Although Escoffier's score for Arizona's food waste levels is pretty awful, the picture isn't perhaps as bleak for the state as it might first appear. The study focused solely on retail and consumer waste, so food that is in stores and our homes. It didn't take into account any other forms of waste, such as food losses that happened before that stage in the supply chain, which could affect the final figures. The school also pointed out that it relied on state-level information, whose different reporting methods could also have a role to play in the high numbers, likewise the impact of tourists.

Ironically, for a state that throws away so much food annually, Arizona has a lot of potential to prevent some of it being thrown into landfill with strategies such as tax incentives or food liability protection. In 2023, non-profit ReFED offered more than 20 ways to cut food waste across the food chain in the U.S., including bolstering food rescue and recycling schemes, or simply eating every part of the fruits and vegetables we buy. If they were properly implemented, the Escoffier School claimed, Arizona could potentially reduce its food waste by 5.47%, maybe even more if more food banks and composting sites were established. 

Another glimmer of hope for Arizona came with the 2026 edition of the annual LawnStarter list, which looks at states that waste the least food. It relied on data from multiple sectors, including retail and residential, but also farm, food service, and manufacturing, offset by strategies like waste mitigation and recycling, (we can all start by putting those coffee grounds in the garage) for a much fuller picture than the Escoffier School. In the LawnStarter study, Arizona placed 37th, with an overall score of 49.62 compared to 78.25 for least-wasteful state Connecticut, while Texas came in last place, with 34.15 points.