Most Revd Justin Welby has backed a new report which warns of children going for days without a substantial meal.
The Feeding Britain in 2015-16 report set out a blueprint for tackling the problem, including involving charities, the Government, councils and the major supermarkets working together to end the "scandal" of perfectly edible food being thrown away.
The report also highlights delays in benefits payments pushing people over the edge into hunger and forcing them to seek help from food banks.
Archbishop Justin said these were "unnecessary problems" and called for a wider debate about the issue adding "we are one people with care for all".
In his foreword to the report, the Archbishop said: "It is shocking to read both of the scale of food waste and also of the large amount of evidence that sanctions and delays in connection with the benefits system are still causing what would appear to be unnecessary problems."
The report produced by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hunger said: "Our evidence suggests that the prompt delivery of benefit and tax credit payments in full, coupled with a fair and effective sanctions regime, would more than halve the numbers of people relying on emergency food parcels."
The report recommended that food banks should host trained specialists able to offer advice on benefits and budgeting, but urged the Department for Work and Pensions to "proceed with caution" in its moves to station officials in food banks.
The all-party group's chairman Frank Field MP said: "We are in this extraordinary position of, despite the huge economic difficulties we have had, we are a rich nation that throws away and pays people to burn edible food and we have armies and armies of people who are hungry.
"The best estimate is that the numbers are not rising but they are massively high."
A Government spokesman said: "We agree with the all-party group that nobody should go hungry, especially when surplus food goes to waste.
"We will therefore carefully consider the recommendations made in this report."
