The last few years, a lot of measures addressing food waste have been proposed and implemented. Recent literature reviews call for more evidence on the effectiveness or food waste reduction potential of these measures. Furthermore, very few information is available on the extent to which food waste measures have been evaluated based on their economic, environmental and social performance. This review closes this knowledge gap by looking at the methodologies currently used in literature to evaluate food waste prevention measures, using a pre-defined assessment framework with quantitative evaluation criteria. In total, evaluations were examined for 25 implemented measures with measured outcomes and 23 proposed measures with projected outcomes. The paper concludes that there is a great variety in how an evaluation is performed. Additionally, in many cases, economic, environmental, or social assessments are incomplete or missing, and efficiency is only seldom calculated. This is particularly true for implemented measures whereas proposed measures with projected outcomes tend to have a more thorough evaluation. This hampers practitioners and decision-makers to see which measures have worked in the past, and which ones to prioritize in the future. Moreover, more complete information on the effectiveness and efficiency of measures would make incentives for reducing food waste at various levels along the food chain more visible. At European level, work is ongoing on the development of a reporting framework to evaluate food waste actions. This paper complements these efforts by providing an overview of the current gaps in evaluation methodologies found in literature regarding food waste prevention measures within EU and beyond.

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When it comes to making sustainable food purchasing choices, consumers trust on information provided to them by eco-labels. This article studies the labels for fresh produce available to consumers in Flanders (Belgium), concluding that the existing labelling landscape fails at enabling consumers to make adequate decisions for purchasing environmentally sound food. A consumer survey supports the need for additional information on the sustainability of fruits and vegetables.A potential intention-performance gap is found for producers, and in the wider sense, for the entire supply chain. Since current labels found on fresh produce are input or practice based labels, farmers adhering to those labels can be considered as having the intention to produce sustainably. However, this intention alone cannot guarantee good environmental performance.In order to close the potential intention-performance gap for the supply chain and provide more adequate information to consumers, we conclude that performance-based labels, covering the entire food chain of fresh produce, using the life cycle assessment approach (LCA) and including situational parameters such as time of consumption, origin and production and distribution mode, are indispensable.

This study presents two food waste prevention measures focusing on the interface between the food service sector and its food suppliers. Through a case study on procuring salmon by a hotel kitchen, the use of food products with different convenience grades is examined. The convenience grade of the fish bought (whole salmon, fillets or portions) determines where along the food chain filleting and/or portioning takes place and thus where food waste from cut-offs occurs. To reduce food waste, we propose purchasing filleted or portioned salmon rather than whole salmon. For both measures, effectiveness is calculated by looking at food waste reductions along the food chain, achieved by a better use of filleting and portioning cut-offs. Next, sustainability across the environmental, economic and social dimension is evaluated by calculating (a) avoided embodied environmental impacts and economic costs, (b) avoided food waste disposal environmental impacts and economic costs and (c) environmental, economic and social impacts and costs associated with implementing the measures. Purchasing fillets or portions instead of whole salmon leads to food waste reductions of −89% and −94%, respectively. The interventions further lead to net climate change impact savings along the salmon chain of −16% (fillets) and −18% (portions). Whereas the kitchen saves costs when switching to fillets (−13%), a switch to portions generates additional net costs (+5%). On a social level, no effects could be determined based on the information available. However, good filleting skills would no longer be needed in the kitchen and a time consuming preparation can be sourced out.

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