[LargeWu]

There's certainly a trade-off. However, grocery stores in the US discard massive amounts of produce, and then still more is wasted when consumers bring it home and don't use it. It feels like we would have plenty of room to reduce yields, ship less food around, and still get everybody fed. (that's a hypothesis, not a conclusion)

[blablabla123]

I'm too lazy to get the reference but at least for Germany or EU both numbers you mention (consumer throwaway rate + supermarket throwaway rate) were double digit. So yeah, your conclusion is pretty much justified ;)