Global food losses and food waste
BibTeX
@misc{gustavsson2011global,
title={Global food losses and food waste},
author={Gustavsson, Jenny and Cederberg, Christel and Sonesson, Ulf and Van Otterdijk, Robert and Meybeck, Alexandre},
year={2011},
publisher={FAO Rome}
}
My Summary
I found this UN commissioned report while trying to find the answer to the question “Is it true that most food waste happens during transportation?” And the answer to that is no, not at all, at least not in North America. There’s a sizeable amount of loss during transport for roots and tubers, and a smaller amount for fruits, veggies, and grains, while oilseeds and pulses, meat and dairy have negligible losses during transportation.
Much (most?) of the food waste in North America happens in the consumer’s home.
Patterns are very different in developing nations.
I’ve also used this report as an example in class about the importance of understanding definitions. If you just look at the graphs, you might see that “distribution” claims a large portion of food losses in meat, and conclude that the meat is going bad during transport. But in fact, “distribution” refers to the grocery-store step of things. The transportation of the meat falls under “post-harvest” category of activities, and the post-harvest losses for meat are near zero.