This open access book examines how food systems reforms can support efforts to achieve SDG 12, responsible consumption and production, by reducing food loss and waste in support of sustainable, safe, and nutritious diets in countries at different points of structural transformation. 

This study reveals two potential psychological levers for reducing household food waste; promoting shorter term, flexible meal planning and changing the way we feel about food waste. 

This report by the NGO Feedback finds that food businesses in the UK often use redistribution of surplus food to community groups as a dump, delivering them food that is inedible, damaged and unsuitable for consumption, avoiding costs for disposal. 

This study examines how storytelling can change consumer perceptions toward unattractive food, such as fruit and vegetables. It finds that a combination of storytelling and marketing practices such as coupons significantly increases the consumption of unattractive food, and recommends that retailers employ such methods to reduce food waste. 

This book by Anna Murcott provides a social history of food packaging which takes a wide historical and geographic lens to examine shifts from domestic to commercial production, the emergence of associated technologies, changes in retailing, implications for policy and practice, and current concerns about over packaging.

Researchers find that substantial amounts of agricultural land and water could be saved by replacement of livestock feed with agricultural by-products. This article presents a predictive model which explores the impact of feed replacement with agricultural by-products on agricultural resource uses.

Food loss and waste is thought to contribute to 24% of greenhouse gas emissions from the global food system, which amounts to 6% of total emissions. It is generally assumed that if food loss and waste were to decrease, less food would need to be produced, which would ultimately reduce associated environmental impacts. However, this study looks at an alternative scenario where reduced food loss and waste causes a ‘rebound effect’ in which the resultant price decreases cause an increase in consumption.

This book explores policies on food waste and loss from around the world, including France, Italy, Romania, Japan, China and the United States. It is aimed at students, academics and policymakers.

This paper, co-authored by TABLE research director Elin Röös, sets out five storylines for the development of agroecology in the European Union and models the impacts of each scenario on progress towards several established or proposed policy targets. It finds that significant dietary change and waste reduction are necessary if agroecological farming is to contribute to meeting the policy goals.