Challenges for Food Loss and Food Waste and Opportunities for Reduction

Every night, 795 million people go to bed hungry although we produce sufficient food to provide an average 2700 kilocalories every day per person. Four billion metric tons of food produced annually. for human consumption is wasted along the food supply chain. Food loss is a decrease in quality and the quantity of food reflected in nutritional value, economic value, or food safety of all food produced for human consumption, but not eaten by humans. Food waste is part of food loss and refers to low value food which is fit for human consumption but which has spoiled or expired. More than 50% of food in the Med is imported to accommodate for high population growth. In the Med, most food is lost during early stages of the food supply chain due to post-harvest techniques. Food waste is higher in the norther Med countries; there is a lack of policy and regulation, insufficient coordination of stakeholders, institutional weakness, weak infrastructure, inadequate wholesale markets, and lack of innovation. Using a figure, Ali discusses per capita food loss and food waste at consumption and pre-consumption stages in different regions all over the world. Then, he covers the food loss and food waste along the food supply chain in every stage starting from the agricultural production till the end of consumption. Then, processing, mixing, cooking, flying, mixing, product evaluation, and quality control, packaging till end of life disposal. And finally, he shows the negative environmental and economic impacts of food loss and food waste, which include carbon emissions. This chapter is part of Module 8: How to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in the Mediterranean – The Way Forward IV. Reducing Food Waste and Enhancing By-Product Innovations.

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