Magnitude, Causes and Scope for Reducing Food Losses in the Baking and Confectionery Industry—A Multi-Method Approach

Abstract

Reducing food wastage is one of the challenges in achieving global food security and transforming current food systems. Since human nutrition is closely dependent on cereal production, research was undertaken aimed at understanding the food losses in the baking and confectionery industry (BCI) in Poland, in particular at determining the volume, reasons and ways of reducing losses, identifying possibly all of the reasons for losses in BCI using the Ishikawa 5M + 1E diagram and determining the level of significance and probability of risk of food losses in the analysed sector. Two research methods were used. Quantitative data were collected using the mass balance method from five businesses that served as case studies. Qualitative data were collected through individual in-depth interviews with 17 industry experts. The companies’ average daily losses ranged from 0.8 to 6.4 tons, representing 9.7 to 14.4% of production volume, including 10.4–13.4% of bread losses and 6.8–24.4% of fresh pastry losses. The highest losses were generated by transport departments and these were exclusively retail returns. Following the Ishikawa concept, 31 primary and 94 secondary reasons for food losses were identified. Using the probability of loss risk, a toolkit for loss prevention and mitigation across all departments within businesses (raw materials magazine, production section, final product magazine and final product transport) and a set of horizontal tools were identified, including specialised training for employees and activities in several areas, e.g., technical status and production technology, organisation and planning, logistics and sales and cooperation with retail. This study, conducted in Poland, offers valuable results for developing programmes and strategies to prevent and manage food losses in BCI. Many of the solutions proposed in both toolkits can bring economic benefits without involving additional high costs.

The Large and Diverse Family of Mediterranean Flat Breads: A Database

“…In the marketing classification, bread is included in the group of products of frequently purchased products, characterized by short shelf life and subject to high risk of waste [ 15 , 68 , 69 ]. The shelf life of flat breads ranged from shorter than 3 days (58%), between 3 and 7 days (27.3%) and up to one year (9.1%) in case of hard, dry flat breads ( Table 10 ).…”

“…The aim of this work was, therefore, giving an insight into the technical and cultural features of the flat bread types produced in each one of the Mediterranean countries involved in the FlatBreadMine project (namely Croatia, Egypt, France, Greece, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Malta and Spain). The steps to achieve this goal are: (1) To identify all the flat bread types produced in the selected countries; (2) to collect information on their main technical characteristics, from the starting ingredients to the end-product, including the cultural features; (3) to set up a database containing all the information; (4) to examine and interpret the information collected [ 15 ] in order to highlight the diversity of flat breads across the considered countries and to define the selection criteria.…”

Reducing Food Waste at Retail Stores—An Explorative Study

“…Brancoli et al [43] found that in Sweden, grocery retail is responsible for 35.1% of the total bread waste. Without considering households, retail is the supply chain stage in which the most bakery food waste is generated [44]. This allows streamlining on the core issues of food waste prevention.…”

“…Ongoing research should investigate the requirements upwards the supply chain in more depth, such as distribution, warehousing, and production. This will require a more intensified discussion of the producer-retailer interactions (see, e.g., [44]), challenges, and obstacles of supplier requirements (see also [30]). Fourth, although we began discussing impact on customers and customer preferences, future research could validate our findings by incorporating more data from a market survey and customer behavior (such as customer perceptions related to different assortment and inventory levels).…”

Antecedents of Consumer Food Waste Reduction Behavior: Psychological and Financial Concerns through the Lens of the Theory of Interpersonal Behavior

“…Food waste has a number of negative consequences, including strain on natural resources such as land and water as well as a financial liability [ 5 , 9 , 10 ]. Avoidable food loss occurs at every stage of the food supply chain, necessitating the establishment of formalized systems for the management of food waste [ 11 , 12 , 13 ].…”