The Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMECHE) has produced a report entitled “Global Food Waste Not, Want Not,” which highlights the challenge of feeding a growing population, in a world where up to 50% of food is wasted. The report looks at where food waste takes place, the need to produce more food with finite resources (land use, water, and energy), and provides recommendations as to what the engineering should do to yield greater productivity.

You may be interested in this study co-authored by FCRN network member Toni Meier on diets and environmental impacts, published in the Journal of Environmental Science & Technology.

This article, published in Global Change Biology, examines the total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for the EU27 livestock sector for the year 2007 utilizing a life cycle assessment, which examines every step and input during the creation of a product to calculate total GHG emissions. They also examined the GHG emissions from livestock production, consumption of imported livestock products and wastage.

The Courtauld Commitment is a voluntary “responsibility deal” aimed at improving resource efficiency and reducing the carbon and wider environmental impact of the grocery sector. This includes action to reduce food and packaging waste.  Signatories to the deal include UK grocery retailers and manufacturers, and the initiative is led and coordinated by the Waste Resources Action Programme (WRAP). 

This paper starts with a summary of why food waste is an issue, from an environmental and economic perspective, reviews other developed country estimates of food waste losses, and then calculates the volume and economic value of retail and consumer stage food losses in the US, looking at this at an aggregate and individual consumer level (it doesn’t quantify environmental impacts). 

Oxfam have published a new report entitled ‘The Food Transformation’. This report, written by Brook Lyndhurst, examines the global food system and the social and environmental injustices inherent in it, and at the potential of consumer action to effect change. 

A study by Sonnino and McWillliam investigates food waste in hospitals in Wales. The researchers look at three hospitals and find that up to 60% of the food was thrown away, with levels particularly high in elderly rehabilitation wards.  

A review and a consumer survey which look at promotions used by the UK grocery sector and what effect they might have on food waste. The tentative results from the in-home part of this research suggest that food bought on promotion is not more likely to be wasted, at least for the products investigated.