World Food Day

: Food Scarcity Meets Festival Feasting In India

Quick Summary

Festive seasons and elaborate feasts go hand-in-hand in India. But behind the glittering lights, filtered Instagram reels, and trending hashtags is a reality we just can't escape - the gaping wood shortage and wastage. There is a visible lack of security and stringent guidelines around food protection and disposal. And at times, especially festivals, a more callous consumption. The result? Excess food that does not even make it to the food banks. This World Food Day, let's understand both sides of the picture – the feast-laden tables and the empty stomachs.

Deep Dive

The greatest irony may lie in the fact that World Food Day falls right in the midst of India’s grand festive season. Observed every year on October 16, the theme for 2025 is 'Hand in Hand for Better Foods and a Better Future', a rallying cry for collective efforts toward food security. It is meant to remind us of the urgent need to eradicate hunger and build resilient food systems – even though the world currently produces enough food to feed all. Yet, the cultural reality tells a different story.

The Stark Contrast

When it comes to food, India faces a significant paradox. The country wastes 78.2 million tonnes of food each year, making it the second-highest contributor to global food waste. And yet, millions lack access to adequate and nutritious food due to poverty, inequality, inefficiency, and wastage, making India self-sufficient in food production but not in food security. As per the 2025 Global Hunger Index (a measurement of hunger at the global, regional, and national levels), India is 102nd out of 123 countries with a score of 25.8 – this indicates a serious level of hunger. 

The Major Festivals And Their Food Footprint

India's festival season, spanning roughly September through November, represents the country's most extravagant period of celebration and consumption when it comes to food. The contrast becomes particularly stark when looking at spending patterns.

Navratri (September-October)

From home-cooked feasts to temples, pandals, restaurants, and street food stalls, people go all out during these nearly fortnight-long celebrations. Elaborate food offerings (prasad or bhog) change daily, and not every bit is consumed. Temples and community pandals distribute thousands of kilograms of prasad to devotees, while families observing fasts prepare special vrat-friendly dishes. The sheer scale of simultaneous celebrations across millions of households creates massive demand for milk products, sugar, and speciality ingredients.

Dussehra (October)

Marking the culmination of Navratri and the victory of good over evil, Dussehra features community feasts and the distribution of sweets and snacks. States like Karnataka hold the Mysore Dasara, a ten-day state festival featuring royal feasts and elaborate traditional meals. Families prepare special dishes and distribute prasad after puja, with particular emphasis on sweets made from jaggery, coconut, and sesame seeds.

Diwali (October-November)

India sells over 50,000 tons of sweets during Diwali alone – that's equivalent to the weight of roughly 10,000 elephants in just confections. Traditional preparations include laddoos (made from besan, coconut, or semolina), barfis, gulab jamuns, jalebis, and regional specialities like karanji in Maharashtra and adhirasam in Tamil Nadu. Families prepare these sweets in bulk, weeks in advance, exchange elaborate gift boxes with relatives and business associates, and host multiple gatherings with multi-course meals. The requires massive quantities of ghee, milk, sugar, dry fruits, and refined flour. Families also prepare savouries like chaklis, murukku, and mathri by the kilogram.

Weddings (Peak Season October-December)

Indian weddings surge during this time as it’s considered auspicious. However, weddings are perhaps the most significant source of food waste in India. According to NGO Feeding India, 10 to 20 per cent of food served at weddings goes to waste, with an average three-day Indian wedding producing about 700 to 800 kilograms of wet waste and 1,500 kilograms of dry waste. India's former Food Minister K. V. Thomas characterised about one-fifth of the food served at weddings and social gatherings as being discarded, calling it ‘a criminal waste’. 

Traditional weddings feature multiple events – mehendi, sangeet, wedding ceremony, and reception, each with elaborate buffets offering 50-100 dishes including appetisers, multiple main courses, biryanis, breads, desserts, and live food stations. With guest lists ranging from 300 to over 1,000 people, and social pressure to display abundance, families consistently over-order to avoid running short.

The Disparity In Numbers 

Consider this striking calculation – If about 54 kg of food is wasted per Indian annually, as per 2024 figures of the UN Environment Programme's Food Waste Index Report, and India's population exceeds 1.4 billion, that translates to enough food waste to potentially feed millions of the country's malnourished population multiple times over.

Studies show that over 80% of food waste occurs during production, processing, and consumption, with much of it ending up in landfills or being incinerated. During festival season, household waste spikes dramatically as families over-prepare for guests, overbuy perishable ingredients, and discard leftovers from elaborate celebrations.

A Call For Conscious Celebration

The timing of World Food Day during India's festival peak serves as an annual reminder that true celebration doesn't require waste. The cultural and religious traditions that underpin these festivals actually emphasise sharing, community care, and mindful consumption – values that seem to have been overshadowed by conspicuous consumption and competitive displays of abundance.