Food waste is a significant issue globally. One-third of all the world’s food produced for human consumption is wasted every year. This equates to 2.5 billion tonnes annually, costing over $1.8 trillion. Food waste produces eight percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and consumes nearly one quarter of all water used in agriculture. In Australia, 7.3 million tonnes of food is wasted annually across the entire supply and consumption chain. Law and regulation have an important role to play in addressing food waste but, to date, law and policy responses to the problem are under-developed. All levels of government in Australia have power and responsibilities for waste. More recently, waste policies have been developed at a national level and filtered down and implemented at state and local levels. Legal geographers seek to bring the law into the frame of geography, and space and place into focus for the law. This is particularly relevant in the context of food waste law and policy. Legal geography methodologies highlight law-place-people nexus across space and time; map the spatiality of law through in-depth understanding and analysis of doctrinal law; and engage with multiple methods and varied disciplinary perspectives. Using legal geography, this article combines a mixed-method approach of doctrinal analyses to map Australia’s food waste law and policy; qualitative interviews with Local Government waste teams to analyse perspectives of those responsible managing Australia's food waste; and interdisciplinary literature review to better understand the food waste problem. Insights are used to unpack the complexity of the food waste law-place-people nexus and to identify opportunities for national regulatory reform. The research show limits in the ability of the current regime to respond to geography, space, and place-specific food waste issues, and assists with the development of an optimal regulatory mix to address food waste across Australia.