Wasted Food, Wasted Resources? A Critical Review of Environmental Impact Analysis of Food Loss and Waste Generation and Treatment

16/04/2024

Food loss and waste (FLW) comes with significant environmental impacts and thus prevents a sustainable food system transition. Here we conducted a systematic review of 174 screened studies that assessed the environmental impacts of FLW generation and treatment. We found that the embodied impacts ...

State-level policies alone are insufficient to meet the federal food waste reduction goal in the United States

09/01/2025

The United States Food Loss and Waste Reduction Goal seeks to reduce national food waste by 50%, down to 74 kg per capita, by 2030. Here we investigate state policies’ alignment with the federal goal across four policy categories. We develop a policy scoring matrix and apply it to wasted food sol...

Supply-disposition storage of fresh fruits and vegetables and food loss in the Canadian supply chain

07/01/2025

Analyzing transportation and storage inefficiencies at the initial stages of the food supply chain is crucial for minimizing early-stage losses and enhancing food lifecycle efficiency. However, most food system studies, focused on retail and consumer stages. This study delves into the intricate d...

Nature-inspired solutions for food loss prevention: exploring smallholder farmers' willingness to adopt solar-powered cold storage

05/03/2025

At COP27, the United Nations made a clarion call for addressing food system inefficiencies, specifically highlighting the need for innovative research into sustainable cold storage technologies for postharvest loss reduction. Consistent with this call, we explore smallholder farmers' willingness ...

A call for perfectly imperfect fruit and vegetables: food loss in public procurement

13/01/2025

Despite increasing awareness, food loss and waste in food supply chains remains a significant challenge resulting in environmental risks and ethical concerns, shaped by the conflicting logics of abundance and scarcity. Systemic overproduction, driven by high-quality demands and the perishability ...