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Review
. 2021 Feb 25;10(3):497.
doi: 10.3390/foods10030497.

Transformation of the Food Sector: Security and Resilience during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Cennet Pelin Boyacι-Gündüz  1 , Salam A Ibrahim  2 , Ooi Chien Wei  3   4 , Charis M Galanakis  5   6
Affiliations
Review

Transformation of the Food Sector: Security and Resilience during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Cennet Pelin Boyacι-Gündüz et al. Foods. .

Abstract

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a new era in the efficacy of the food supply chain, while the consequences of this new era on humanity, the economy, and the food sector are still under examination. For example, food security is one vital aspect of food systems which is directly affected. This review summarizes food security during epidemics and pandemics before moving on to panic buying, food shortages, and price spikes observed during the current crisis. The importance of food resilience, together with the need for addressing issues related to food loss and food waste, is underlined in the review towards food security and sustainable development. As a result, the pandemic has shown that our food systems are fragile. Since the global population and urbanization will grow in the coming decades, pandemics will likely occur more often, and climate change will intensify. Consequently, there is a need to ensure that our food systems become more sustainable and resilient. To that end, we have highlighted the need to develop contingency plans and mitigation strategies that would allow a more rapid response to extreme events (e.g., disasters from climate change) and transform the food sector by making it more resilient.

Keywords: food loss; food shortage; food supply chain; food systems; food waste; panic buying; sustainability.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The number of people facing acute food insecurity. Adapted from [5].
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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