An overview of reducing food loss and food waste in supply chains

Creating systems designs by considering a balance between economic, environmental, and social effects is significant in today’s sustainability concern. Sustainability has become an emerging topic, growing concerns and attention for companies. Especially companies operating on a global scale aim to develop strategies for sustainable supply chain management. When the supply chain is a food chain, that concern increases exponentially and sustainable management of the chain becomes a critical challenge requiring the development and implementation of innovative practices by all stages within value chains. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), a significant amount of food is wasted or lost in the journey from farm to fork. This waste affects the global economy, food availability, as well as the environment negatively. In this work, we, therefore, focus on addressing these aspects by searching how food waste or food loss could be reduced throughout a supply chain network. We provide solution ways for the food waste/loss reduction obtained from current works in literature.