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would like to thank Rogelio Madrueño, Rafael Domínguez and two anonymous referees for their comments and suggestions. We also gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Spanish Aid Agency (AECID). The views expressed in this paper, however, remain solely those of the authors.

There is a growing debate surrounding the contradiction between an unremitting increase in the use of resources and the search for environmental sustainability. Therefore, the concept of sustainable degrowth is emerging aiming to introduce in our societies new social values and new policies, capable of satisfying human requirements whilst reducing environmental impacts and consumption of resources. In this framework, circular economy strategies for food production and food loss and waste management systems, following the Sustainable Development Goals agenda, are being developed based on a search for circularity, but without setting limits to the continual increase in environmental impacts and resource use. This work presents a methodology for determining the percentage of degrowth needed in any food supply chain, by analyzing four scenarios in a life cycle assessment approach over time between 2020 and 2040. Results for the Spanish case study suggested a degrowth need of 26.8% in 2015 and 58.9% in 2040 in order to achieve compliance with the Paris Agreement targets, highlighting the reduction of meat and fish and seafood consumption as the most useful path.

Food losses and waste (FLW) tend to be referred to in terms of mass, occasionally in economic terms, disregarding the nutritional-cost nexus of such losses. This work aims to estimate the nutritional food losses and waste (NFLW) of the Spanish agri-food system in terms of energy, macronutrients, fibre, and vitamins and minerals along the entire supply chain. Nutritional food losses (NFL) occurring prior to the distribution level, and nutritional food waste (NFW) at the retail and consumption stages, are distinguished, and 48 representative food commodities and 32 nutrients are characterised. To provide insight into the extent of these values, the results are compared to the equivalent recommended daily intake. Moreover, the NFLW for an average Spanish citizen is compared to that for other representative diets: Mediterranean, lacto-ovo-vegetarian, and vegan, in addition to the Spanish recommended guidelines. Finally, a Nutritional Cost Footprint (NCF) indicator combining nutritional and economic variables is proposed to define recovery strategies. The results suggest that 1016 kcal, 70.7 g proteins, 22 g dietary fibre, 975 mcg vitamin A, 117 mg vitamin C and 332 mg calcium daily per capita are embedded within Spanish FLW. Agricultural production accounts for 40% of NFLW, and fruits and vegetables are the categories with the largest potential for nutritional and economic food wastage mitigation. Results from this paper provide NFLW data and analysis to strengthen and simplify the decision-making process of FLW management strategies.

The generation of food loss and waste (FLW) is a global problem for worldwide politics. About one-third of the food produced ends up in the rubbish before it is consumed. For this reason, it is essential to design and implement new strategies along the food supply chain (FSC) with the aim of reducing this FLW at each stage. However, not only mass quantification should be considered, but also economic and nutritional performance. The novelty of this study is the definition of a methodology based on the “distance to target” approach by means of multi-objective optimization to evaluate the economic and nutritional cost produced by this FLW. This methodology was applied to the Spanish food basket in 2015. The results revealed that 80% of the total FLW generated in economic and nutritional terms is concentrated in the agricultural production (53.3%) and consumption (26.3%) stages. In the first stages of the FSC, fruits (Dn eq.= 0.7), cereals (Dn eq.= 0.61), and vegetables (Dn eq.= 0.57) were the furthest from the distance target due to the great amount of FLW generated. Moreover, according to the normalized weighted distances obtained from the minimization of economic and nutritional cost, pulses (Dn eq. = 0.05–0.03) and eggs (Dn eq. = 0.02) were the more efficient food categories. The methodology described in this study proposes a single index to quantify the economic and nutritional cost of different food categories to facilitate the decision-making process. This index makes possible the definition of reduction strategies focused on specific food categories and depending on the FSC stage.