Abstract
Roughly 30 % of the food produced worldwide—about 1.3 billion tons—is lost or wasted every year, which means that the water and energy used to produce it is also wasted. Poor storage facilities, over-strict sell-by dates, “get-one-free” offers, and consumer fussiness all contribute to the waste. In different parts of the world wastage occurs at different parts of the supply chain; in the developing world, food losses are predominantly at the producer end; and in the developed world wastage is generally consumer-driven. Reducing food wastage at every level is possibly the lowest energy- and water-cost way to increase food production, which is an important consideration for improving future food security in a sustainable manner.
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Notes
- 1.
FAO defines terms as follows: “Food losses refer to decreases in edible food mass throughout the part of the supply chain that specifically leads to edible food for human consumption. Food losses take place at production, post-harvest and processing stages in the food supply chain. Food losses occurring at the end of the food chain (retail and final consumption) are rather called “food waste”, which relates to retailers’ and consumers’ behavior.”
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Verma, M. (2015). Food Wastage—Energy Wasted. In: Energy Use in Global Food Production. SpringerBriefs in Food, Health, and Nutrition. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16781-7_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16781-7_4
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