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Review
. 2019 Jul 29;8(8):297.
doi: 10.3390/foods8080297.

Understanding Food Loss and Waste-Why Are We Losing and Wasting Food?

Rovshen Ishangulyyev  1 , Sanghyo Kim  2 , Sang Hyeon Lee  3
Affiliations
Review

Understanding Food Loss and Waste-Why Are We Losing and Wasting Food?

Rovshen Ishangulyyev et al. Foods. .

Abstract

The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) reported that approximately one-third of all produced foods (1.3 billion tons of edible food) for human consumption is lost and wasted every year across the entire supply chain. Significant impacts of food loss and waste (FLW) have increased interest in establishing prevention programs around the world. This paper aims to provide an overview of FLW occurrence and prevention. Economic, political, cultural, and socio-demographic drivers of FLW are described, highlighting the global variation. This approach might be particularly helpful for scientists, governors, and policy makers to identify the global variation and to focus on future implications. The main focus here was to identify the cause of the FLW occurrence throughout the food supply chain. We have created a framework for FLW occurrence at each stage of the food supply chain. Several feasible solutions are provided based on the framework.

Keywords: food loss; food security; food waste; waste management; waste prevention.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors of this research declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Framework of Food Loss and Waste (FLW) definitions.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Portion of FLW in the stages of the food supply chain (FSC). Source: Lipinski et al. [6].
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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