Food businesses in the European Union are preparing for a carbon-neutral future by gradually transitioning to a circular way of operating. Building upon results from the EU REFRESH project, we consider the most valuable food processing by-streams in Europe and discuss potential food safety risks that must be considered while valorizing them for human consumption. These risks are weighed against the nutritional benefits offered by these products and their potential applications in food supply chains. Broadly, we examine whether it is possible for spent grains, cheese whey, fruit and vegetable scraps, meat processing waste, and oilseed cakes and meals to be safe, sustainable, and nutritionally valuable at the same time. The discussion highlights that valorizing by-products obtained from food processing operations is feasible on a large scale only if consumers deem it to be a safe and acceptable practice. Extracting valuable compounds from by-products and using them in the preparation of functional foods could be a way to gain consumer acceptance. Furthermore, we find that current EU food safety legislation does not sufficiently accommodate food processing by-products. A way to bridge this regulatory gap could be through the adoption of private food safety standards that have shown proclivity for sustainability-related issues in food supply chains. Finally, by proposing a decision tree, we show that it is indeed feasible for some food processing by-products to be valorized while ensuring sustainability, food safety, and nutritional relevance.

Private food safety standards have become an important governance mechanism in contemporary food supply chains. While much has been written about private standards from the perspectives of different academic fields, there has never been a dedicated literature review to examine their interaction with global food supply chains. In this systematic review, 45 peer reviewed articles on private food standards, selected through extensive searches in four academic databases are critically appraised. Our analysis reveals that the most studied European private food safety standards are owned by retail conglomerates and therefore place the retail sector in a position of influence in the supply chain. These standards influence supply chain structures, market access, and the efficiency of food safety management systems. They also challenge the traditional relationship shared by actors in the supply chain with public authorities and the World Trade Organization. In the recent years, their scope has expanded to include topical issues such as environmental sustainability, worker safety, and animal welfare. Overall, the review suggests that European private food safety standards alter the operations of modern agri-food supply chains to accommodate consumer wishes while allowing the retail sector to exert its influence without taking on additional legal and economic liability.

The Common Fisheries Policy of the European Union was reformed in 2013 with the aim of improving the sustainability of the fishing sector. The Landing Obligation, a cornerstone of this reform, requires fishers to land their unwanted catch instead of discarding it at sea. Existing literature pays little attention to what becomes of this unwanted catch once it is landed. To further the discourse on the sustainable valorisation of unwanted catch, this study explores whether unwanted catch that is safe for human consumption could be used for improving food security. The paper focuses on Dutch food banks, which deliver critical food aid to over 160,000 individuals yearly but struggle to provide all dependant recipients with nutritionally balanced food parcels. The research question is addressed in two ways. The food bank recipients’ willingness to consume UWC is evaluated quantitatively through a survey. Next to this, data from interviews with relevant stakeholders are analysed qualitatively. Results indicate that the Food Bank Foundation and its recipients are willing to receive this fish if it is safe to consume and accessible. However, various factors such as existing infrastructure, lack of economic incentive to donate, competition from non-food and black markets, and the fishing industry’s conflict with the landing obligation might pose barriers to this kind of valorisation. The dissonance between fisheries, food, and sustainability policies is discussed and identified as a key limiting factor. To bridge the differences between these policy areas, we propose public-private partnerships and voluntary agreements among involved stakeholders.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been detrimental to food security globally. The Netherlands, despite its advanced stage of development, saw a surge in food insecurity among its most vulnerable citizens. Dutch food aid is managed by private charities and social organisations that often aim to address the problems of food insecurity and food waste by redistributing surplus food that is safe to consume. This paper investigates how the pandemic impacted surplus food redistribution in the country by employing an Exploratory-Descriptive-Qualitative approach. This is done by analysing data from interviews with relevant stakeholders involved in redistributing surplus food in the Netherlands as well as media reports on the topic. Our findings indicate that the interviewed organisations experienced drastic fluctuations in supply and demand. To cope with these changes, rapid organisational and supply chain innovation was observed. Next to this, there seems to have been disproportionate negative impact on smaller charities in comparison to bigger, better established organisations. Based on our findings, we discuss what the future of surplus food distribution in the Netherlands might look like and why changes made during the pandemic must be well documented and carefully analysed.

Climate change is considered as a potential threat to sustainability of agriculture in India. Considering the importance of agriculture in the pursuit of the country’s development objectives, including the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations, understanding possible impacts of climate change on productivity of major food crops in the country assumes importance in developing appropriate policies and programmes for agricultural technology development and transfer in general and for climate change adaptation in particular. Such an understanding at a scale where most of the development planning is done will be more useful in policy planning. This paper analysed climate change impacts at district level for major food crops using the district level climate projections for two time periods viz., mid-century (2021-2050) and end-century (2071-2098). Yields of most crops are projected to decrease in a majority of districts during mid-century period. The yield impacts are deeper and wider during end-century period. The yield impacts are relatively smaller and even positive in case of rapeseed & mustard and soybean. Some of the policy implications emerging from this study are: (i) Efforts are to be targeted and prioritized in the districts where the yields are likely to suffer more (ii) Concerns related to abiotic stress, especially those related to heat/temperature stress, need more attention in crop improvement and natural resource management programmes and (iii) Considering the dimension of climate change along with other bottlenecks to sustainable agriculture in the research and development process is a desirable way of mainstreaming climate change in to economic development programmes.