California Watch wraps up its three-part series on hunger in that state with a look at how much food is wasted and why.
Reporters found that tons of food goes to waste when restaurants dump it rather than donate it to distribution centers, when farmers plow over fruits and and vegetables in the fields and when grocery stores throw away food.
Discarded food represents a quarter of all waste tossed away by California households.
The project, in collaboration with the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at USC, includes a look at the five largest food retailers and whether they donate to food banks and other distribution centers.
