In the present study, the composition of bio-oil was determined using various analysis techniques such as H-NMR, 13 C-NMR, DEPT 90 & 135, and GC-MS. The bio-oil was produced from torrefaction of mixed food waste at 300 °C with heating rate of 10 °C/min. The novelty in this study lies in two facts; (i) NMR has been used as a qualitative method in contrary to it being used a quantitative method in previous works on bio-oil from other biomass and the compounds identified via GC-MS were cross checked via NMR Spectra of the compounds that were present in large quantity in bio-oil sample (> 3%); (2) bio-oil from mixed food waste (MFW) as no study was there to determine the detailed composition of bio-oil from MFW. Characteristics of MFW is quite different from typical biomass as it has additional compounds such as starch, protein, and lipids and found to be generating bio-oil of different composition. © 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.