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Quantification of food waste per product group along the food supply chain in the European Union: a mass flow analysis.

ABSTRACT: In 2015, the United Nations defined the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), which include a target (12.3) on food waste. The target requires "by 2030, to halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and to reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses". The target has increased awareness about the food waste problem and boosted research in food waste quantification. Nevertheless, there is a lack of studies that adopt a systematic approach to account for food waste providing disaggregated values per food supply chain stage and per food groups. Such an approach could support policy makers in prioritizing interventions for food waste reduction. To fill this gap, this paper presents a high-level top-down approach to food waste accounting in the European Union. The study aims to support the understanding of the mass flows associated with food production, consumption, and waste, addressing different food groups along the food supply chain. The method for accountin is the mass flow analysis. According to the results, cereals, fruit, and vegetables as the food groups are responsible for the highest amount of food waste, and the consumption stage to be responsible for the largest share of food waste for most food groups. This work highlights the need for further primary research on food waste generation in the EU. Ultimately, this would allow to robustly estimate the food waste generated at EU level, and establishing a more accurate baseline to track the progress towards SDG target 12.3.

SUBMITTER: Caldeira C

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6703187 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Quantification of food waste per product group along the food supply chain in the European Union: a mass flow analysis.

Caldeira Carla C De Laurentiis Valeria V Corrado Sara S van Holsteijn Freija F Sala Serenella S

Resources, conservation, and recycling 20191001

In 2015, the United Nations defined the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), which include a target (12.3) on food waste. The target requires "by 2030, to halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and to reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses". The target has increased awareness about the food waste problem and boosted research in food waste quantification. Nevertheless, there is a lack of studies that adopt a systematic ap ...[more]

PMID: 31582876

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Project description:Microbial chain elongation has emerged as a valuable bioprocess for obtaining marketable products, such as medium chain fatty acids usable in several industrial applications, from organic waste. The understanding of the microbiology and microbial ecology in these systems is crucial to apply these microbiomes in reliable production processes controlling microbial pathways to promote favourable metabolic processes, which will in turn increase product specificity and yields. In this research, the dynamics, cooperation/competition and potentialities of bacterial communities involved in the long-term lactate-based chain elongation process from food waste extract were evaluated under different operating conditions by DNA/RNA amplicon sequencing and functional profile prediction. The feeding strategies and the applied organic loading rates strongly affected the microbial community composition. The use of food waste extract promoted the selection of primary fermenters (i.e., Olsenella, Lactobacillus) responsible for the in situ production of electron donors (i.e., lactate). The discontinuous feeding and the organic loading rate 15 gCOD L-1 d-1 selected the best performing microbiome in which microbes coexist and cooperate to complete the chain elongation process. Both at DNA and RNA level, this microbiome was composed by the lactate producer Olsenella, the short chain fatty acids producers Anaerostipes, Clostridium sensu stricto 7, C. sensu stricto 12, Corynebacterium, Erysipelotrichaceae UCG-004, F0332, Leuconostoc, and the chain elongator Caproiciproducens. This microbiome also showed the highest predicted abundance of short-chain acyl-CoA dehydrogenase, the functional enzyme responsible for the chain elongation process. The combined approach herein used allowed to study the microbial ecology of chain elongation process from food waste by identifying the main functional groups, establishing the presence of potential biotic interactions within the microbiomes, and predicting metabolic potentialities. This study provided pivotal indications for the selection of high-performance microbiome involved in caproate production from food waste that can serve as a basis for further improving system performance and engineering the process scale-up.

Project description:BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted global health supply chains including manufacturing, storage, and delivery of essential medicines, testing kits, personal protective equipment, and laboratory reagents. We sought to document how pandemic impacted the procurement, prices, and supply chain of medical products in Zimbabwe.MethodsWe conducted semistructured in-depth key informant interviews with 36 health system stakeholders in Zimbabwe involved in medicine procurement. Respondents included pharmacists, regulatory officers, and procurement and supply chain management professionals from public and private sectors.ResultsBefore the COVID-19 pandemic, respondents described experiencing long-standing resource constraints, medicine shortages, foreign currency shortages, and supply chain inefficiencies. The pandemic exacerbated this situation due to supply constraints, export restrictions, medicine shortages, and movement restrictions that disrupted logistical and stock management systems. Competitive bidding and tendering processes experienced reduced participation by international suppliers. Significant price increases were initially observed among internationally shipped medicines and for personal protective equipment to cover additional freight costs. COVID-19 pandemic impacts were moderated by reduced patient demand and lower health services utilization, resulting in fewer supply shocks and less price volatility. Further, health system adaptations such as switching treatment regimens, modifying dispensing schedules based on stock availability, redistributing stock of medicines among facilities, and new service delivery models such as integrated outreach services helped ensure continued patient access to medicines.ConclusionsOur findings highlight the need for policies that ensure continuity in access to health services and medical products, even during a pandemic, by avoiding blanket restrictions on medical product exports and imports. Pooled procurement, especially at regional and global levels, with long-term service agreements may help achieve greater resiliency to supply and price shocks from supply chain disruptions. Interventions across manufacturing, trade, and regulatory policy and service delivery models are also needed for supply chain resiliency.

Dataset Information

Quantification of food waste per product group along the food supply chain in the European Union: a mass flow analysis.

Publications

Quantification of food waste per product group along the food supply chain in the European Union: a mass flow analysis.

Similar Datasets

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