Looking for Answers to Food Loss and Waste Management in Spain from a Holistic Nutritional and Economic Approach

Abstract

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.

Fostering Awareness on Environmentally Sustainable Technological Solutions for the Post-Harvest Food Supply Chain

“…Through the analysis of the diagram of sustainability in the agro-industry, shown in Figure 3, it is possible to verify that the FSC is composed by farming (production), postharvest, processing, distribution, and consumption, and their different goals should be taken in consideration through the circular economy and FLW reduction [29,30]. The political and cultural aspects must be considered in addition to the three pillars of a sustainability society, the environment, and the economy in the agri-food sector.…”

Climate action and food security: Strategies to reduce GHG emissions from food loss and waste in emerging economies

“…The GHG emissions derived from FLW treatment only include those occurring in the stages that dispose of these organic residues in urban environments. Hence, carbon emissions linked to FLW treatment in the production stage were excluded from the system boundaries given their heterogeneous disposal in rural, peri-urban or industrial contexts in which traceability of these residues is unclear (Margallo et al, 2020).…”

A Novel Composite Index for the Development of Decentralized Food Production, Food Loss, and Waste Management Policies: A Water-Climate-Food Nexus Approach

“…Moreover, Hoehn et al [37] suggested meat FLW as the category with the highest embodied energy loss, which was much higher than fruit or vegetables. Recently, a new work developed by Laso et al [50] highlighted vegetables, fruits, and cereals as the categories less efficient in terms of generated FLW mass. In this work, if the total of the three indicators (WF, GWP, and NFLW) of each FLW category assessed eggs, cereals, meat, and vegetables then the categories highlighted as the most important when developing strategies for FLW management in Spain, by policy-makers, achieved compliance with the five SDGs assessed.…”