A field investigation on anaerobic digestion of food waste for 235 days in a 3000 L semi-continuous biogas reactor has been conducted in the hilly area of Solan (1544 m above mean sea level), Himachal Pradesh, India. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study which optimized organic loading rate for food waste in ambient condition for summer (0.34 g VS/L/day) and winter season (0.24 g VS/L/day) in Himachal Pradesh, India. On the basis of results obtained from the 3,000L biogas reactor, a detailed investigation of energy potential, techno-economic feasibility and comparison of global warming potential due to landfill, composting and anaerobic digestion is conducted for all 11 hilly states of India. From the analysis, it is found that anaerobic digestion is the best method amongst these for managing food waste and has an approximate energy potential of 13,770 GWh in the next decade. From the technoeconomic analysis, it is estimated that capital investment for anaerobic digestion process has a payback time of 5.9 years with a 4.6% internal rate of return and approximately 1400 million pound net profit value. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.