Food waste accounting along global and European food supply chains: State of the art and outlook
Open accessAbstract
Contributing to environmental pollution and resources depletion, food waste represents a considerable inefficiency of the global food system. Within the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 12.3, countries committed to halve per-capita food waste generated at retail and consumer levels and to decrease food waste along the food supply chain by 2030. Reliable and detailed information on food waste is of utmost importance for the actors of the food supply chain, organizations and governments willing to implement and monitor effective reduction strategies. The present paper is a review of existing studies on food waste generation at the global and European scales and aims primarily at describing and comparing the approaches adopted, and secondarily at analysing their potential in supporting food waste related European interventions and policies. Ten studies were selected among relevant scientific papers and grey literature and their underlying quantification methodologies were systematically analysed. Methodological elements discussed in the paper include type of waste streams captured by estimations, distinction between edible and inedible food waste along the agro-food supply chain, reported units of measure, overall inefficiencies of the food system, and uncertainty of data. Current estimations of food loss and waste generation range between 194-389 kg per person per year at the global scale, and between 158-298 kg per person per year at the European scale. However, further efforts are needed to improve their level of detail and reliability and to foster their support to food loss and waste-related strategies.
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Food waste generation in Europe ranges from 158 to 298 kg/person/year and globally from 194 to 389 kg/person/year.
“The food waste generation in Europe and in the global scale ranges from 158 kg/person/year to 298 kg/person/year and 194 kg/person/year to 389 kg/person/year, respectively [14].”
From Food Waste Biorefinery: Pathway towards Circular Bioeconomy (2021) · cites this paper as [14]
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- Authors
- Corrado, S., & Sala, S.
- Affiliations
- European Commission (BE)
- Corresponding author
- Sala, Serenella
- Venue
- Waste Management
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2018-09
- Volume
- 79
- Pages
- 120-131
- ISSN
- 0956-053X (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC6202438
- OpenAlex
- W2884202829
- Cited by
- 311
- References
- 25
- Citations by year
- 2026: 28 · 2025: 35 · 2024: 48 · 2023: 42 · 2022: 37 · 2021: 64 · 2020: 31 · 2019: 24 · 2018: 2
- FWCI
- 3.07
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Waste Management (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Joint Research Centre (European Commission) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- European Commission’s Knowledge Centre
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Food Science › Food Waste Reduction and Sustainability
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Agriculture Sustainability and Environmental Impact
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Food Science › Agricultural and Food Production Studies
- Keywords
- food waste, food loss, food supply chain, Sustainable Development Goal 12.3, food waste policy, data uncertainty
- MeSH terms
- Food, Food Supply, Reproducibility of Results, Food Chain
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