 Every year, we produce more than enough food to feed everyone on the planet. So why are millions of people still going to bed hungry, and millions of small-scale farmers still living in poverty? While the reasons are complex, one of the many critical issues to be addressed is food loss and waste. Around 14% of food is lost before it reaches consumers, while 17% is wasted at consumer level every year. This also means less income for farmers and fewer opportunities to improve livelihoods. Where is it all going wrong? One reason is the lack of effective cold chains, which in simple terms means keeping food fresh from farm to fork. Perishable foods must be kept in a cool, temperature-controlled environment throughout the journey from production, aggregation and storage, processing, marketing and distribution, all the way to our plates. This temperature-controlled supply chain of food is called the food-cold chain, but cooling technologies can consume a lot of electricity, still largely generated from fossil fuels. Some continue to use ozone-depleting substances, ODSs or hydrofluorocarbons, HFCs, which are powerful greenhouse gases. Today, cold chains contribute towards around 4% of global GHG emissions, which impact climate change and food production. Lack of access to food-cold chains impacts food security, livelihoods and limits access to markets. Without sustainable cooling solutions, our health, food and livelihoods are at risk. So what's being done to improve the food-cold chain? In 1987, nations came together to sign the Montreal Protocol to help save the ozone layer. This involved phasing out ODSs in various sectors, including cooling technologies. Under its Kigali amendment, nations committed to phasing down HFCs while also addressing energy efficiency issues. And in 2019, the Rome Declaration called on governments, organisations and private initiatives to collaborate on building sustainable food-cold chain solutions. FAO and UNEP believe this can be achieved by improving access to energy for cooling along the food value chain, developing and gathering data, improving technical capacity, updating policies, implementing efficiency improvements and financing new business models for upscaling. Sustainable food-cold chains will help us work towards the SDGs by creating a healthier planet, supporting farmers and fish's livelihoods and ensuring more nutritious food reaches everyone's plates.