Sunday, March 13, 2005

US Consumes 22% of World's Food?

In retail value, at least, yes, apparently.

According to a recently released report from IGD, the global retail market for food in 2003 was $3.5 trillion (out of a total global retail market of $8.8 trillion). The US accounted for roughly 22% of this, which would be around $770 bn. (which comes out to about $2,600 per person per year).

So, let's see. Our (US) population is roughly 296mm (see http://www.census.gov/population/www/ ), out of a world population of about 6.4 bn. That's 4.6%. And we're responsible for 22% of the world's retail food purchases. Either we're eating too much, or we get charged too much for food.

BTW, the same report predicts that this world food retail market will grow at 4.8% a year until 2020. You may be relieved to hear that most of the extra calories (OK, dollars, anyway) will be consumed by non-Americans (Indians, Russians and Chinese), so that the US share will decline to "only" 19%.

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