scholarly journals Guiding Nutritious Food Choices and Diets along Food Systems

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (17) ◽  
pp. 9501
Author(s):  
Beulah Pretorius ◽  
Jane Ambuko ◽  
Effie Papargyropoulou ◽  
Hettie C. Schönfeldt
Keyword(s):  
Supply Chain ◽  
Food Supply ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Food Choices ◽  
Health Food ◽  
Trade Offs

Poor diets are responsible for more of the global burden of disease than sex, drugs, alcohol, and tobacco combined. Without good health, food security, and nutrition, development is unsustainable. How food is grown, distributed, processed, marketed, and sold determines which foods are available, affordable, and acceptable within the local cultural context. These factors guide food choices, influencing the quality of people’s diets, and hence they play a vital part in health. The food system is complex and is neither nutrition nor health driven. Good nutrition and human health are not seen as important supply chain outcomes, diminishing between the different processes and actors in the chain. This is in contrast to the environmental and labour concerns now also perceived as supply chain issues. Although food loss and waste is now appreciated as key to sustainable food supply chains, the critical role on nutrition security remains obscure. In a free market dispensation, the trade-offs between agricultural production and income generation versus nutrient delivery from farm to fork needs to be addressed. Investment and incentivised initiatives are needed to foster diverse food production, preservation, distribution and influence consumers’ behaviour and consumption. The decisions made at any stage of the food supply chain have implications on consumer choices, dietary patterns, and nutritional outcomes. Leveraging the entire food system is an underused policy response to the growing problem of unhealthy diets.

Sustainable Food Logistics Systems

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhaohui Wu ◽  
Madeleine Elinor Pullman
Keyword(s):  
Supply Chain ◽  
Food Supply ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
New Technology ◽  
Cold Chain ◽  
Community Supported Agriculture ◽  
Food Supply Chain ◽  
Sustainable Food ◽  
Chain Management

Food supply chain management is becoming a critical management and public policy agenda. Climate change, growing demand, and shifting patterns of food production, delivery, and consumption have elicited a series of new challenges, such as food security, safety, and system resiliency. This chapter first introduces the typical players in a food supply chain and examines the global food system characterized by consolidation and industrialization. It then discusses some critical topics of the sustainable food supply chain that aim to address these challenges. These topics include traceability, transparency, certification and standards, and alternatives to industrialized food systems, including cooperatives, community-supported agriculture, and roles of small and medium-sized growers in regenerative agriculture. The chapter ends with a discussion of several important emerging logistics management topics, including last-mile delivery, new technology, and cold chain management.

scholarly journals Big data, information asymmetry, and food supply chain management for resilience

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Michelle Miller
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
Supply Chain ◽  
Supply Chain Management ◽  
Supply Chains ◽  
Food Supply ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Food System ◽  
Market Access ◽  
Chain Management

The Biden Administration is reviewing supply chains as part of its response to recent supply chain failures during COVID-19, and anticipated disrup­tions associated with climate change. This policy analysis discusses supply chain management, that is, the monitoring and continual improvement of materials flow and information flow to better manage risk. We are in an era of proprietary big data and digitized applications to make sense of it. Healthy food systems require policy to address unequal access to food systems data and informa­tion that occurs between businesses as well as between private businesses and government. Managing risk to a nation’s overall food system is an important government function that includes setting fair market rules and ensuring open infor­mation exchange in food supply chains. In this way, our government ensures equitable food and market access as new technologies and disruptions arise. This paper reviews these concepts consider­ing current policy actions of the Biden Administration.

scholarly journals Opportunities, challenges and trade-offs with decreasing avoidable food waste in the UK

2021 ◽  
pp. 0734242X2098342
Author(s):  
Shivalee Patel ◽  
Manoj Dora ◽  
John N Hahladakis ◽  
Eleni Iacovidou
Keyword(s):  
Supply Chain ◽  
Food Waste ◽  
Food Supply ◽  
Food System ◽  
Social Benefit ◽  
Waste Generation ◽  
Food Supply Chain ◽  
Global Literature ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
The Uk

Around 6 million tonnes of edible food are being wasted (post-farm gate) in the UK each year. This fraction of edible wasted food is known as avoidable food waste. In a circular economy food is a valuable resource that must be captured at all stages of the food supply chain and, where possible, redistributed for consumption. This can prevent avoidable food waste generation, and dissipation of food’s multidimensional value that spans environmental, economic, social, technical and political/organisational impacts. While the importance and benefits of surplus food redistribution have been well documented in the global literature, there are still barriers that prevent perfectly edible food from being wasted. This study looks at the main stages of the food supply chain, and amasses the opportunities, challenges and trade-offs associated with surplus food redistribution to the UK economy. It highlights points in the food system where interventions can be made, to improve food’s circularity and sustainability potential. Stakeholder interrelations, regulatory and socio-economic aspects are discussed in relation to their influence on decreasing avoidable food waste. The main output from this work is a diagrammatic depiction of where challenges and trade-offs occur along the food supply chain, and how policy and socio-economic reforms are needed to maximise avoidable food waste prevention, and the surplus avoidable food redistribution in the food supply chain for social benefit.

scholarly journals Alternative Agri-Food Systems Under a Market Agencements Approach: The Case of Multifunctional Farming Activity in a Peri-Urban Area

Environments ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (7) ◽  
pp. 61
Author(s):  
Maria Cecilia Mancini ◽  
Filippo Arfini ◽  
Federico Antonioli ◽  
Marianna Guareschi
Keyword(s):  
Urban Area ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Alternative Food ◽  
Design Stage ◽  
Alternative Food Networks ◽  
Alternative Food Systems ◽  
Design And Implementation ◽  
Trade Offs

(1) Background: A large body of literature is available on the environmental, social, and economic sustainability of alternative food systems, but not much of it is devoted to the dynamics underlying their design and implementation, more specifically the processes that make an alternative food system successful or not in terms of its sustainability aims. This gap seems to be particularly critical in studies concerning alternative food systems in urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA). This paper explores how the design and implementation of multifunctional farming activity in a peri-urban area surrounding the city of Reggio Emilia in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy impact the achievement of its sustainability aims. (2) Methods: The environmental, social, and economic components of this project are explored in light of the sociology of market agencements. This method brings up the motivations of the human entities involved in the project, the role played by nonhuman entities, and the technical devices used for the fulfillment of the project’s aims. (3) Results: The alternative food system under study lacked a robust design phase and a shared definition of the project aims among all the stakeholders involved. This ended in a substantial mismatch between project aims and consumer expectations. (4) Conclusions: When a comprehensive design stage is neglected, the threefold aim concerning sustainability might not be achievable. In particular, the design of alternative food systems must take into account the social environment where it is intended to be put in place, especially in UPA, where consumers often live in suburban neighborhoods wherein the sense of community is not strong, thus preventing them from getting involved in a community-based project. In such cases, hybridization can play a role in the sustainability of alternative food networks, provided that some trade-offs occur among the different components of sustainability—some components of sustainability will be fully achieved, while others will not.

The Expanding Moral Circle as a Framework Towards Food Sustainability

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalie Herdzoia ◽  
Ernst Worrell ◽  
Floris van den Berg
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Sustainable Development Goals ◽  
Food System ◽  
Food Choices ◽  
Socially Responsible ◽  
Moral Issues ◽  
Societal Participation ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
Development Agendas

A shift towards more environmentally friendly and socially responsible food systems is a key step in the achievement of global sustainable development goals. To obtain significant results, however, it is essential to find participative ways to frame food sustainability objectives, so they can speak to a wide array of actors of change. This article addresses the promising potential of empowering actors across the food system to make a shift in their food choices, by facilitating the association of food sustainability values with contemporary moral issues. In this context, a conceptual framework for a transition towards food sustainability is proposed, based upon the concept of the moral circle. This approach transcends the human-centred methods enacted in traditional sustainable development agendas, offering an alternative with a more holistic perspective. It is expected that emphasising moral reflection around sustainability might encourage societal participation in the creation of sustainable, fair and healthier food systems.

scholarly journals The EU’s farm to fork strategy: missing links for transformation

2020 ◽  
pp. 17-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sinead Mowlds
Keyword(s):  
Supply Chain ◽  
Circular Economy ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
Action Plan ◽  
Agricultural Practices ◽  
Environmentally Friendly

The Farm-to-Fork strategy, launched in May 2020, is the first attempt at a European-wide approach to food systems of this scale. The strategy sets ambitious targets and aims to create a ‘fair, healthy, and environmentally friendly food system’. Yet, within the bounds of its own regulatory and legislative context (including the Green Deal, the Circular Economy Action Plan and the new Biodiversity Strategy 2030), the strategy falls short of recognising key links in and between the food system. This review posits that the strategy and its targets do not adequately consider the importance of transforming agricultural practices for environmental outcomes; of agricultural practices for nutrition outcomes; nor the links between how we value nutrition along the supply chain, from farm to fork

Supply chain issues in SME food sector: a systematic review

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arun Jose ◽  
PrasannaVenkatesan Shanmugam
Keyword(s):  
Supply Chain ◽  
Product Quality ◽  
Food Supply ◽  
Food System ◽  
Ghg Emission ◽  
Major Research ◽  
Food Sector ◽  
Food Supply Chain ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Research Themes

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the significant supply chain issues in the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) food industry. The objectives are to identify the major themes and the dynamic evolution of SME food supply chain (FSC) issues, the current research trends, the different modelling approaches used in SME FSC, and the most addressed SME food sector. Design/methodology/approach In all, 3,733 published articles from 2002 to 2018 in the Clarivate Analytics Web of Science database were collected, from which 1,091 articles were shortlisted for the review. The authors used bibliographic coupling combined with co-word analysis to identify the historical relations of the research themes that emerged during the periods 2002–2014 and 2002–2018. Findings This research identified five major research themes such as production and distribution in alternative food networks, relationship, safety and standards in the FSC, greenhouse gas (GHG) emission impact of the farm food system, traceability and product quality in FSC and asymmetric price transmission in the FSC. Among the identified themes, GHG emission impact of the farm food system and traceability and product quality in the FSC have received increasing attention in recent years. The dairy sector is the most addressed sector (36 per cent), followed by fruits and vegetables (27 per cent), meat and poultry (18 per cent), seafood (10 per cent) and grains and oilseed (8 per cent). It is also identified that the dairy sector has received significant attention in the “GHG Emission impact of farm food system” theme. Similarly, meat and poultry sectors have received much attention in the “Traceability and product quality in the food supply chain” theme. Also, the authors identified that the empirical modelling approaches are the most commonly used solution methodology, followed by the conceptual/qualitative methods in the SME FSC. Originality/value This study maps and summarizes the existing knowledge base of supply chain issues in the SME food sector. The results of this review provide the major research areas, most commonly used approaches and food sectors addressed. This study also highlights the research gaps and potential future research direction.

scholarly journals “When We Stand up, They Have to Negotiate with Us”: Power Relations in and between an Agroindustrial and an Indigenous Food System in Bolivia

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 4001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johanna Jacobi ◽  
Aymara Llanque
Keyword(s):  
Political Ecology ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Food System ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Scientific Culture ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Production And Consumption

Our global food system is characterized by an increasing concentration and imbalance of power, with trade-offs between hunger, inequality, unsustainable production and consumption, and profit. A systematic analysis of power imbalances in food systems is required if we are to meet the 2030 Agenda vision of promoting sustainable production and consumption patterns and ending hunger and poverty. Such an analysis, with a view to a transformation to more sustainable and just food systems, requires tools to be developed and tested in real-life case studies of food systems. To better understand the structures and mechanisms around power in food systems, this study applies a political ecology lens. We adapted the “power cube” analysis framework that was proposed by the Institute of Development Studies for the analysis of spaces, forms, and levels of power. We apply the analysis of these three dimensions of power to two food systems in the tropical lowlands of Bolivia: one agroindustrial and one indigenous. After identifying food system actors, the food system spaces in which they interact, and what forms of power they use at what levels, we discuss some implications for an emerging scientific culture of power analyses in critical sustainability assessments. Mechanisms of hidden power undermine visible legislative power in both case studies, but in our example of an indigenous food system of the Guaraní people, visible power stays with a local community through their legally recognized and communally owned and governed territory, with important implications for the realization of the right to food.

scholarly journals Quantities and Quantification Methodologies of Food Waste in Swedish Hospitals

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 3116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mattias Eriksson ◽  
Christopher Malefors ◽  
Pauline Bergström ◽  
Emelie Eriksson ◽  
Christine Persson Osowski
Keyword(s):  
Supply Chain ◽  
Food Waste ◽  
Food Supply ◽  
Food System ◽  
Food Supply Chain ◽  
Sustainable Food ◽  
Plate Waste ◽  
Overall Performance ◽  
Regional Authorities ◽  
Sustainable Food System

To move towards a sustainable food system, we cannot continue to waste substantial amounts of the food produced. This is especially true for later stages in the food supply chain, where most sub-processes consume resources in vain when food is wasted. Hospitals are located at the end of the food supply chain and the sector has high levels of food waste. This study investigated food waste quantification practices in Swedish hospitals, examined whether a questionnaire is an appropriate methodology for such mapping, and compiled data for the sector in order to determine the amount of food waste and its composition. A questionnaire was sent to all 21 regional authorities, formerly known as county councils, responsible for hospitals in Sweden. The questionnaire responses were supplemented with food waste records from three regions that organize the catering in a total of 20 hospitals. The results showed that it is common practice in most hospitals to quantify food waste, with quantification focusing on lunch and dinner in relation to the number of guests served. It was also clear that waste quantification practices have been established for years, and in the majority of the hospitals studied. The data revealed that, in comparison with other sectors, food waste was still high, 111 g guest−1 meal−1, consisting of 42% plate waste, 36% serving waste, and 22% kitchen waste. However, there was great variation between hospitals, which, in combination with well-established, standardized waste quantification routines, meaning that this sector has strong potential to spread best practices and improve overall performance in reducing food waste generation.

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