Understanding Food Loss and Waste—Why Are We Losing and Wasting Food?

Ishangulyyev, Rovshen; Kim, Sang-Hyo; Lee, Sang Hyeon

doi:10.3390/foods8080297

Cited by 254 publications

(141 citation statements)

References 63 publications

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“…Transforming a wasteful food supply chain into a sustainable food solution needs collaboration between researchers and multi-stakeholders in the food supply system. This conclusion is in line with several studies [16,19,29,30]. We have to understand the key drivers causing FL and FW across the food supply chain and find solutions for reducing these losses and waste.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

“…Furthermore, data collection and comparable figures for different countries are needed, as well [29]. Ishangulyyev et al [30] emphasized that FL and FW are complicated issues involving multi-stakeholders along the food supply chain; therefore, more research, collaboration, and awareness is needed for the prevention of FL and FW. Authors focus on awareness of the impacts of FL and FW leading to changing consumer attitudes and behaviors.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Losses in the Grain Supply Chain: Causes and Solutions

2020

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Global grain production needs a significant increase in output in the coming decades in order to cover the food and feed consumption needs of mankind. As sustainability is the key factor in production, the authors investigate global grain production, the losses along the value chain, and future solutions. Global wheat, maize, rice, and soybean production peaked at 2.102 million tons (mt) of harvested grain in 2018. Pre-harvest losses due to diseases, animal pests, weeds, and abiotic stresses and harvest destroy yearly amount to about 35% of the total possible biological product of 3.153 mt, with 1051.5 mt being lost before harvest. The losses during harvest and storage through toxin contamination are responsible for 690 mt, with a total of 1.741 mt or 83% of the total newly stored grain. Limited cooperation can be experienced between scientific research, plant breeding, plant protection, agronomy, and society, and in addition, their interdependence is badly understood. Plant breeding can help to reduce a significant part of field loss up to 300 mt (diseases, toxins, water and heat stress) and up to 220 mt during storage (toxin contamination). The direct and indirect impact of pest management on production lead to huge grain losses. The main task is to reduce grain losses during production and storage and consumption. Better harvest and storage conditions could prevent losses of 420 mt. The education of farmers by adopting the vocational school system is a key issue in the prevention of grain loss. In addition, extension services should be created to demonstrate farmers crop management in practice. A 50% reduction of grain loss and waste along the value chain seems to be achievable for the feeding 3-4 billion more people in a sustainable way without raising genetic yields of crop cultivars.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Losses in the Grain Supply Chain: Causes and Solutions

2020

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“…However, fruits classified as medium-quality are no longer correlated with reduced food loss, suggesting that consumers have a stronger demand for better fruit. Medium-grade fruits tend to accrue minor cosmetic blemishes when they are being transported, resulting in lower consumer demand since fruits are consumed without further processing [36]. The sourcing of fruits is especially important since fruit loss from farmer's associations and agricultural production groups is 81.3% and 71.8% lighter than parcels provided by individual farmers.…”

Section: Results Of the Heterogeneity Analysis Separating For Fruits mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Food loss from root and stem, leaf, and flower vegetables considered to be of normal-quality is also lighter than their low-quality counterparts. This result is attributable to the fact that consumers are more willing to purchase standard-quality vegetables since these products tend to go towards food service where they are then cut, making appearances less significant [36]. Natural disaster shocks are still significant, as leaf and flower vegetable losses originating from counties that experienced typhoons or intense rainfall is heavier by 22.9-85.5%, respectively.…”

Section: Results Of the Heterogeneity Analysis Separating For Fruits mentioning

confidence: 99%

What Is Missing in Food Loss and Waste Analyses? A Close Look at Fruit and Vegetable Wholesale Markets

2019

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Food loss and waste (FLW) has been the subject of significant research, with recent empirical evidence analyzing the determinants of FLW in many different countries. Much of this literature examines FLW at the farm, food processing, and consumer level. However, to the best of our knowledge, no study thus far has addressed this issue at food wholesale markets. This paper fills this knowledge gap by examining food loss at fruit and vegetable wholesale markets. Using a dataset with individual auction transactions from Taiwan, we examine the extent to which average daily market prices, product quality, and disaster shocks are associated with food loss. Results point to a negative effect of daily market prices on food loss. Furthermore, disaster shocks can lead to greater food loss, particularly typhoons. These effects are heterogeneous across the distribution for the weight of food loss.Research has also examined the extent of food losses at different stages of the food supply chain. At the farm production level, food losses range from 20 to 40 percent for meat, dairy, cereal, and vegetable products [15][16][17]. These production losses occur when agricultural shocks such as weather conditions prevent crops from being harvested, or when produce is "graded out" based on quality [16]. Other literature has examined post-harvest losses of crops such as maize and sweet potato due to poor management skills and market mismatches [18,19].However, despite this extensive research, no studies have been done on FLW at wholesale markets. There are two primary reasons to believe that FLW can be a severe problem at this stage in the food supply chain. First, many wholesale markets are unplanned urban spaces with no special facilities. Thus, these markets often lack even a single refrigeration unit for their products, particularly cold storage systems that can preserve and store goods for extended periods. Second, the auction system that typically governs wholesale markets can also generate FLW. Since consumers bid on both the quality and quantity of items, this means that products can be left unsold. Wholesale markets facilitate FLW because they have the unique cost of clearing their inventory of perishable products at the end of the business day. This clearance is done to ensure that there is adequate space for the following day's auction items.This paper quantifies the determinants and extent of food loss for wholesale markets using a case study in Taiwan as an illustration. Using a large-scale dataset of individual transactions from a fruit and vegetable wholesale market, we estimate the weight of food loss using the ordinary least squares and quantile regression models. Results show that average market prices are negatively associated with the weight of fruit and vegetable food loss. Compared to high-quality grades of fresh fruits and vegetables, low-quality products are less likely to be sold within the auction market. Regarding the sourcing of agricultural products, we find that fresh fruits and vegetables provided by farmer'...

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“…For instance, a significant issue in food supply chain is food waste (Pearson & Perera, 2018). It was estimated that one third of the foods for human consumption is either lost or wasted throughout the food supply chain, from farmer to processing, transportation, retailing, and consumption (Ishangulyyev, Kim, & Lee, 2019). The IoT and Blockchain technologies have enabled more efficient information sharing and communication through the supply chain, which would facilitate the detection and prevention of food safety issues, and reducing the food waste (Minnens, Lucas Luijckx, & Verbeke, 2019).…”

Section: Food Supply Chain Managementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Utilization of text mining as a big data analysis tool for food science and nutrition

Tao

Yang

Feng

2020

Comp Rev Food Sci Food Safe

121

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Big data analysis has found applications in many industries due to its ability to turn huge amounts of data into insights for informed business and operational decisions. Advanced data mining techniques have been applied in many sectors of supply chains in the food industry. However, the previous work has mainly focused on the analysis of instrument‐generated data such as those from hyperspectral imaging, spectroscopy, and biometric receptors. The importance of digital text data in the food and nutrition has only recently gained attention due to advancements in big data analytics. The purpose of this review is to provide an overview of the data sources, computational methods, and applications of text data in the food industry. Text mining techniques such as word‐level analysis (e.g., frequency analysis), word association analysis (e.g., network analysis), and advanced techniques (e.g., text classification, text clustering, topic modeling, information retrieval, and sentiment analysis) will be discussed. Applications of text data analysis will be illustrated with respect to food safety and food fraud surveillance, dietary pattern characterization, consumer‐opinion mining, new‐product development, food knowledge discovery, food supply‐chain management, and online food services. The goal is to provide insights for intelligent decision‐making to improve food production, food safety, and human nutrition.

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Understanding Food Loss and Waste—Why Are We Losing and Wasting Food?

Cited by 254 publications

References 63 publications

Losses in the Grain Supply Chain: Causes and Solutions

Losses in the Grain Supply Chain: Causes and Solutions

What Is Missing in Food Loss and Waste Analyses? A Close Look at Fruit and Vegetable Wholesale Markets

Utilization of text mining as a big data analysis tool for food science and nutrition

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