L ast week an Israeli nonprofit organization released a shocking report: more than one-third of all food produced in Israel is wasted a full 2.4 million tons enough to provide 64 million meals annually.

The food rescue organization Leket Israel further said that Israel ranks near the bottom of Western countries in food recovery and that the government must do more to prioritize redistributing food in a country where the poverty rate hovers at about 20 percent.

Curious to know how the chareidi community ranked in the food-waste category we turned to Leket for the data. As it turns out the chareidi community in Israel wastes far less food than the secular or national religious communities likely because the great need leads caterers and others to waste less said Joseph Gitler chairman and founder of Leket Israel.

“We have been doing this for 13 years and one thing we have learned is that it is extremely difficult for catering companies to decrease the amount of food they serve” said Gitler noting that food caterers generally prepare an extra 20%-30% of food concerned there won’t be enough. Gitler who grew up in New York started Leket in 2003 when he saw the high poverty rates in his new country. “Western countries waste food in staggering amounts. In Israel and the US it is around 30-40%. It is a scandal.”

Of that extra 2.4 million tons about half of it can be redistributed for human consumption according to the report Food Waste and Rescue in Israel: The Economic Social and Environmental Impact Report prepared by Leket and BDO Ziv Haft Israel.

The extra food about NIS 19.5 billion worth is mainly produced in hotels banquet halls military bases and hospitals.