A Quantitative and Qualitative Study of Food Loss in Glasshouse-Grown Tomatoes

Reducing food loss and waste (FLW) is one strategy to limit the environmental impact of the food supply chain. Australian data suggest that primary production accounts for 31% of national FLW, but there are no comparable data in New Zealand. This study aimed to measure food loss and explore food loss drivers for one of New Zealand’s largest tomato growers by weighing and visually assessing tomato losses at the glasshouse, packhouse and sales warehouse. Qualitative interviews were also held with the grower (n = 3), employees (n = 10), and key industry stakeholders (n = 8). Total food loss for this greenhouse tomato grower was 16.9% of marketed yield, consisting of 13.9% unharvested tomatoes, 2.8% rejected at the glasshouse and 0.3% rejected at the packhouse. The grower’s tomato loss predominantly resulted from commercial factors such as market price, competitor activity and supply and demand. Similar issues were recognized throughout the New Zealand horticulture sector. Commercial factors, in particular, are challenging to address, and collaboration throughout the supply chain will be required to help growers reduce food losses.

Potentials and perspectives of food self-sufficiency in urban areas—a case study from Leipzig

Regionalization of food systems is a potential strategy to support environmental, economic and social sustainability. However, local preconditions need to be considered to assess the feasibility of such a transformation process. To better understand the potentials and perspectives of food self-sufficiency in urban and peri-urban areas, we determined the food self-sufficiency level (SSL) of a German metropolitan region, i.e., the percentage of the food demand that could be potentially provided on existing agricultural land. Main input parameters were actual food demand, agricultural productivity and its temporal variability and land availability. Furthermore, we considered changes in diet, food losses and land management. Based on current diets and agricultural productivity, the administrative region of Leipzig achieved a mean SSL of 94%, ranging from 77 to 116%. Additionally, an area of 26,932 ha, representing 12% of the regionally available agricultural land, was needed for commodities that are not cultivated regionally. Changes in food demand due to a diet shift to a more plant-based diet and reduced food losses would increase the SSL by 29 and 17%, respectively. A shift to organic agriculture would decrease the SSL by 34% due to lower crop yields compared with conventional production. However, a combination of organic agriculture with less food loss and a more plant-based diet would lead to a mean SSL of 95% (75–115%). Our results indicate the feasibility of food system regionalization in the study area under current and potential near future conditions. Addressing a combination of multiple dimensions, for example plant-based and healthier diets combined with reduced food loss and organic farming, is the most favorable approach to increase food self-sufficiency in urban and peri-urban areas and simultaneously provide synergies with social and environmental objectives.

Food Losses and Waste: A Needed Assessment for Future Policies

About one third of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted. For this reason, food losses and waste has become a key priority within worldwide policy circles. This is a major global issue that not only threatens the viability of a sustainable food system but also generates negative externalities in environmental terms. The avoidance of this forbidding wastage would have a positive economic impact on national economies in terms of resource savings. In this paper we look beyond this somewhat traditional resource savings angle and we shift the focus to explore the distributional consequences of food losses and waste reduction using a resource constrained modeling perspective. The impact due to the behavioral shift of each household is therefore explained by two factors. One is the amount of resources saved when the behavioral shift takes place, whereas the other one has to do with the position of households in the food supply chain. By considering the whole supply chain, instead of the common approach based only in reducing waste by consumers, we enrich the empirical knowledge of this issue and improve the quantification of its economic impact. We examine data for three EU countries that present different economic structures (Germany, Spain and Poland) so as to have a broader and more robust viewpoint of the potential results. We find that distributional effects are different for consumers and producers and also across countries. Our results could be useful for policymakers since they indicate that policies should not be driven merely by the size waste but rather on its position within the food supply chain.

Challenges and Prospects in the Agri-food Sector

The world is facing changes that have a significant impact on the environment and every aspect of human life. Currently, 588 million of the world's 7.8 billion people live in extreme poverty, 820 million people are starving, and 2.5 billion suffer from some form of micronutrient deficiency. The population is growing, the processes of aging and migration to urban settlements are actively underway, which is reflected in agricultural production and food demand. At the same time, the impact of the effects of climate change on the state of food security in the world is noteworthy. In addition, inequality, discrimination, and human rights abuses (including the right to adequate and safe human food) exacerbate these consequences, especially for small farms. According to the FAO, 33% of world population growth is expected in the near future. The population, from the existing 7.7 billion, will reach almost 10 billion by 2050. The population growth will lead to a strong increase in food demand. By 2050, it will be necessary to produce 70 percent more than 50-types foods, while the share of agriculture in global GDP is about 4%. While investments and innovations in the agricultural sector are increasing, the growth rate of yields is quite low. The rural population is declining and the aging process is actively underway, which has a serious impact on the labor force. Added to this is the fact that the current use of natural resources is irrational and under severe pressure. Twenty-five percent of agricultural land is severely degraded and land has long been recognized as a limited resource, while water resources are under heavy strain and there is a shortage of water in the world. Food losses and waste are an inefficient side of the sector and a strong threat to the environment. Up to 33% to 50% of the world produced food is never used for food, and the cost of these products exceeds $ 1 trillion. These trends have led to the problem of food shortages. As a result, poverty and hunger have intensified in the world. Moreover, there are four main factors that put pressure on the inherited model of agricultural production, without their solution the sector will not be able to cope with future demands. They are exacerbating the problem of hunger and food shortages in the world, putting pressure on agriculture and the ability of the sector to be able to meet future needs. These factors include: demographics, scarcity of natural resources, climate change, and food losses and waste. In Summary, overcoming these challenges requires the joint efforts of governments, investors, and innovative agricultural technologies to increase productivity and support the transition to an economy based on innovation and knowledge. Modern farms and enterprises have to work differently, mainly due to the use of technological advantages. In the future, agriculture must use sophisticated technologies and advanced equipment. Precision farming and the use of robotic systems ensure more profitable, efficient, safe and environmentally friendly agricultural production. According to the FAO report, these efforts require considerable resources: to eradicate hunger by 2030 and deal with the demographic pressures that will require an annual investment of $ 265 billion. Keywords: Agri-food sector, poverty, hunger, food security, food losses and waste.

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

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.

Energy-Environmental Impact Assessment of Greenhouse Grown Tomato: A Case Study in Almeria (Spain)

Tomato is one of the most common crops across the world, but it is also one of the types of food that generates the most losses across its life cycle. This paper addresses this issue by providing a Life Cycle Analysis of greenhouse grown tomato in southern Spain. The results confirm that tomatoes are a thirsty and frail crop. Most of its energy demands and carbon emissions go to packaging (35%) and transportation (42%) as well as supplying water for their growth. There seems to be room for improvement in the recovery of energy (54.6%) and CO2 emissions, mainly addressing the waste treatment of packaging and plastic as well as improving transportation. Despite being highly water demanding, irrigation processes are already efficient in industrial greenhouses, and most of the water recovery will need to take place in the waste recovery stage. Food losses at the consumption phases do not constitute a significant loss in energy or a significant amount of carbon emissions saved.

Food Losses and Wastage along the Wheat Value Chain in Egypt and Their Implications on Food and Energy Security, Natural Resources, and the Environment

Pushing yield frontiers of cereals and legumes is becoming increasingly difficult, especially in drylands. This paper argues and provides empirical evidence that food loss and wastage constitute a sizeable proportion of the total wheat supply in Egypt. By following the life cycle of food and using standard measurement protocols, we estimated the levels of food loss and wastage along the wheat value chain in Egypt and their socioeconomic, biophysical, and environmental implications. About 4.4 million tons (20.62% of total wheat supply from domestic production and imports in 2017/2018) is estimated to be lost or wasted in Egypt which is also associated with the wastage of about 4.79 billion m3 of water, and 74.72 million GJ of energy. This implies that if Egypt manages to eliminate, or considerably reduce, wheat-related losses and wastage, it will save enough food to feed 21 million more people from domestic production and hence reduce wheat imports by 37%, save 1.1 billion USD of much-needed foreign exchange, and reduce emissions of at least 260.84 million kg carbon dioxide-equivalent and 8.5 million kg of methane. Therefore, investment in reducing food loss and wastage can be an effective strategy to complement ongoing efforts to enhance food security through productivity enhancement in Egypt.

Benefits and Limitations of Methods of Measuring Food Losses and Their Economic and Non-Economic Significance – The Case of Bakery and Confectionery Industry

The urgent challenge of reaching sustainable development goals (including those pertaining to the limitation of food losses and waste) raises social awareness in this area. At the same time, a need arose to conduct studies focusing on the creation of a system of gathering and reporting data on food wastage and procedures helping to reduce its scale. The article presents and discusses the benefits and drawbacks of selected methods of data collection used for estimating of food losses in processing sectors, based on a case of the bakery and confectionery industry (the mass balance method, quantitative studies – questionnaire/survey methods, qualitative research – in-depth interviews, direct measurement). Attention was paid to the importance of methodological, technical, organisational and legal aspects. The starting points were the methods for certain links in the food chain identified in EU legal documents of 2019. Bakery and confectionery businesses make up around 40% of the number of entities operating in the agri-food sector in Poland, holding an important place in the food economy. The sector's losses are around 2.5% of the mass of the manufactured products, with the highest losses attributable to production departments in bakeries. The complexity of manufacturing processes of a wide range of bakery and confectionery products raises numerous problems with regard to measuring losses, especially in the methodological, technical, organisational and legal aspects. The mass balance method should be considered the most recommended for measuring losses in the bakery and confectionery sector. Collected knowledge can be used on a practical level, to create reporting systems about food losses in our country for selected food sectors. Such actions will allow meeting the reporting requirements of the European Commission (EC) and to monitor process of food loss reduction.