Factors affecting food waste at the downstream entities of the supply chain: A critical review

Abstract

The food waste problem is not simple and it requires the integration of various actors involved in the food supply chain. Otherwise, the goal of reducing food waste and minimizing the negative environmental, social, and economic consequences would be difficult to attain. Up to now, far too little attention has been paid to understanding the food waste factors at the downstream stages of the food supply chain. This critical systematic review aims to identify the potential causes of food waste at the downstream entities of the food supply chain and provides a coherent and integrated knowledge basis of these factors. A configurative systematic literature review has been performed and after a filtering process, 92 articles were analyzed and synthesized. The potential factors were identified and categorized into three groups as (i) internal, (ii) micro-environmental, and (iii) macro-environmental. The factors suggest that the food waste problem critically depends on an organization’s activities and is influenced by micro- and macro-environmental elements. Finally, the review discusses contradictory findings and provides future research avenues.