Food Loss and Waste: Measurement, Drivers, and Solutions

Spang, Edward S.; Moreno, Laura C.; Pace, Sara A.; Achmon, Yigal; Donis-González, Irwin R.; Gosliner, Wendi; Jablonski-Sheffield, Madison P.; Momin, Abdul; Quested, Tom; Winans, Kiara S.; Tomich, Thomas P.

doi:10.1146/annurev-environ-101718-033228

Cited by 151 publications

(113 citation statements)

References 126 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…HBS could be a powerful tool for the direct analysis of these relationships and a check of causal relationships between socio-economic factors and food consumption patterns. It could lead to more effective and focused environmental policies on certain socio-economic groups according to their socio-economic status or the characteristics of households or individuals [ 72 , 73 , 74 , 75 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A diagnosis of the differences in food consumption and environmental pressures in households at a sub-national level may turn out to be highly relevant in the design of effective public policies. It may serve as a link between the directives proposed on a global, regional or national level and the diagnostic work developed in cities concerning the urban metabolism [ 63 , 75 , 89 ]. Thus, it is possible to spell out the former within the territory and to provide the latter with a context within the articulation of the competences that each state has in the management of the different steps in the food chain, which normally fall outside the domain of any particular city.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Household Food Metabolism: Losses, Waste and Environmental Pressures of Food Consumption at the Regional Level in Spain

Donato¹,

Carpintero

2021

Foods

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Dealing with an increasing population is challenging the global food system not only in productive terms, but also through the associated environmental pressures. A growing diagnostic effort is being made by global and national agencies. Innovative approaches are needed to support effective policy efforts. This study aims to illustrate the potentialities of the household metabolism approach in the diagnosis of the environmental pressures derived from household food consumption, using the Spanish regions and the effects of the 2008 crisis as case studies. The direct information concerning food consumption in physical terms provided by the Spanish household budget survey is used to estimate some relevant environmental pressures (food losses and waste along the food chain, as well as water and carbon footprint) for the Spanish food system at a sub-national level. These data are directly translated into differences in environmental pressures and compared with other dietary profiles. Furthermore, the physical information of environmental pressures is related to household socio-economic status, showing the potentialities of the association with household socio-economic information. Finally, our data illustrate with some examples how the economic crisis has acted as a driver of change in food consumption, promoting a better environmental performance at the cost of poorer diets.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Household Food Metabolism: Losses, Waste and Environmental Pressures of Food Consumption at the Regional Level in Spain

Donato¹,

Carpintero

2021

Foods

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Research about food loss and food waste is especially complicated by the various definitions that differentiate between food loss and food waste, and sometimes the terms are used interchangeably [6]. Further, methods of measuring loss and waste have historically been inconsistent or unreliable [7][8][9][10][11][12].…”

Section: Key Concepts Related To Food Loss and Food Wastementioning

confidence: 99%

Social Justice, Food Loss, and the Sustainable Development Goals in the Era of COVID-19

Fleetwood

2020

Sustainability

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) rest on a set of broadly accepted values within a human rights framework. The SDGs seek to improve human lives, improve the planet, and foster prosperity. This paper examines the human rights framework and the principles of social justice and shows that, while the SDGs do not specifically state that there is human right to food, the SDGs do envision a better, more just, world which rests upon the sufficiency of the global food supply, on environmental sustainability, and on food security for all. Then the paper examines the interrelationships between the SDGs, food access and waste, and human rights within a framework of social justice. Finally, it looks at the potential pandemic of hunger wrought by COVID-19, showing that COVID-19 serves as an example of a crisis that has raised unprecedented challenges to food loss and waste in the global food supply system and tests our commitment to the principles espoused by the SDGs.

show abstract

“…The significant knowledge gap of annual food losses at the point of production for pre-harvest and harvest phases (Gustafsson et al, 2013;Spang et al, 2019) compels us to fill this information gap as the first step toward improved resource investments in agri-food systems. For the specialty crops included in this study, on-farm loss data collected through semi-structured interviews provide baseline information for the research.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Evaluation of On-Farm Food Loss Accounting in Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Four California Specialty Crops

Winans

Marvinney

Gillman

et al. 2020

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The majority of the environmental impacts associated with the agri-food supply chain occur at the production phase. Interests in using life-cycle assessment (LCA) for accounting for agri-food supply chains as well as food losses and waste (FLW) has increased in recent years. Here, for the first time, we estimate production-phase embedded resources and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in California specialty crops considering on-farm food losses. We use primary, survey-derived qualitative and quantitative data to consider on-farm food loss prevention and avoided GHG emissions through two different scenarios applied in an illustrative example for processing peach at the production stage. Further, we contribute a mathematical approach for accounting for discrete, unique flows within the net flow of loss in a supply chain, in LCA. Through the detailed LCAs, we identify the hotspots for the four crops as on-farm diesel use, fertilizer application, direct water use, and electricity for irrigation pumping. Impacts from cultivation practices and the additional impacts from on-farm food losses vary significantly by crop. Including the losses in the LCAs resulted in increases in overall resource use and GHG emissions by 4-38% (percent varies depending on the crop type). We used the LCA models and a set of straightforward calculations to evaluate the environmental impacts of a prevention action (a 50% reduction in on-farm food losses) and the secondary use of end-of-life (EOL) biomass from processing peach. The results of this evaluation showed an 11% reduction in GHG emissions compared to the baseline (full harvest). In conclusion, by explicitly including the impacts of on-farm food losses in LCA, we highlight challenges and opportunities to target interventions that simultaneously reduce these losses and the associated environmental impacts in agricultural systems.

show abstract

Food Loss and Waste: Measurement, Drivers, and Solutions

Cited by 151 publications

References 126 publications

Household Food Metabolism: Losses, Waste and Environmental Pressures of Food Consumption at the Regional Level in Spain

Household Food Metabolism: Losses, Waste and Environmental Pressures of Food Consumption at the Regional Level in Spain

Social Justice, Food Loss, and the Sustainable Development Goals in the Era of COVID-19

An Evaluation of On-Farm Food Loss Accounting in Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Four California Specialty Crops

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About