Study ‘Lebensmittelverluste bei Obst, Gemüse und Kartoffeln zwischen Feld und Ladentheke/ Food losses between field and counter’

Overview

One of the main tasks of the agricultural and food industry is to supply society with sufficient quantities of high-quality, sustainably produced and safe food.  Forecasts assume that more than 9 billion people worldwide will have to be supplied with food in around 30 years’ time. The loss of food means that products which are or have been intended and suitable for human consumption do finally not serve this purpose.  If food is not used as such, the resources used for production (e.g. labour, land, energy, fertilisers, pesticides) and the environmental impacts of production (e.g. climate change, pollution of surface waters and groundwater) are not matched by corresponding benefits.

One reason for this study was the lack of reliable data for quantifying food losses, particularly at the beginning of the value chain.  Products that are not harvested and incorporated or that are used for alternative purposes within agriculture normally do not appear in the statistics. The reasons for food losses in this area have also hardly been investigated.  The influence of state or private quality standards is often discussed.  In order to reduce losses, it is important to know the extent and reasons for losses, as well as existing reduction strategies. Due to product characteristics (e.g. shelf life vs. perishability) differences between the individual products are to be expected. An online survey, expert interviews and a workshop with participants from agriculture and trade (up to the wholesale level) as well as other experts (consulting, market surveillance, quality management) were carried out.

Contact name: NA
Contact email: nora.brueggemann@scp-centre.org
More info link: https://www.lanuv.nrw.de/fileadmin/lanuv/landwirtschaft/Lebensmittelverluste_ObstGemueseKartoffel_StudieNRW.pdf