Food loss and waste in the food supply chain: current situation and potential solutions

Abstract

This research aims to identify the food waste and loss (FLW) at the different phases of the food supply chain(FSC)and provide some possible solutions that the various actors can implement to reduce the waste. This research starts by overviewing the FSC .It then focuses on describing how the waste occurs in the different phases of the supply chain and the main drivers of FL Win each stage. The impact of FL Wis assessed and quantified in the study to sensitize the readers about the under estimated environmental and socio-economic effects of the issue. The findings emphasize the urgency to tackle the problem and involve all the actors, especially the consumers, to formulate some solutions and strategies that will alleviate the ecological and socio-economic effect of the issue. Additionally, as a support, based on an extensive literature review and successful examples, some solutions and recommendations are presented that can be adopted to reduce the waste by the different actors.