Importance of sustainable operations in food loss: evidence from the Belgian food processing industry

Manoj Dora,Nitin Seth,Xavier Gellynck,Bidit Dey,Hans De Steur,Joshua Wesana

doi:10.1007/s10479-019-03134-0

Abstract

There are numerous studies on food loss on the demand side examining consumer behavior towards food choice and food waste generation at the household level. In this paper, we target food loss on the supply side, with a focus on the industrial food processing environment. More specifically, we map food loss in each processing stage, that is sustainable operations. Primary data were conducted through a survey (complemented with observations and documentary analysis) in 47 food processing companies in Belgium to identify hotspots and quantify food loss. The findings show that processing is by far the most important food loss hotspot. While transportation, changeover, interrupted production, human errors and product effects at this stage often lead to substantial or excessive losses, causes of food loss during packaging and before or after production have a smaller impact. At subsector level, however, there are substantial differences with respect to the most important causes. The originality of this research can be evaluated in three ways: one, identifying hotspots of food loss in the industrial processing environment; two, measuring the magnitude of losses across different product categories and causes and three, how sustainable operations plays a significant role in food loss prevention.

Highlights

Today, global efforts to fight hunger do not necessarily aim to increase world food production, but increasingly target the reduction of food losses and waste in both developing and developed countries
This study aims to answer the following research questions: (1) Which are the hotspots of food loss at different stages of food production? (2) What are the major causes of food loss across different production stages and product categories?
While previous food waste analysis in Belgium concluded that the majority of food loss during food processing is non-edible (OVAM 2012), our study has shown substantial edible food losses at various processing stages, albeit with varying degrees of quantity

Summary

Introduction

Global efforts to fight hunger do not necessarily aim to increase world food production, but increasingly target the reduction of food losses and waste in both developing and developed countries (e.g. the FAO’s Safe Food Initiative). Between 1.3 and 2 billion tons of food that is produced worldwide is lost or wasted, corresponding to an annual global cost of about USD 1 trillion, of which roughly US$ 310 billion is in developing countries and US$ 680 billion in industrialized countries (Fox and Fimeche 2013; Gustavsson et al 2011). As total food loss in the industrialized world nearly equals the total available food production in Sub-Saharan Africa, there is an urgent call to tackle this issue, and to measure what is lost in developed countries (FAO 2011). In the EU alone, nearly 40% of losses occur during food processing (Buchner et al 2012), partially due to inefficiencies in the processing system and production management

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