Agri-Food Logistics as a Dynamic Actor in Managing Food Loss and Waste: A Bump-Start by COVID-19

Introduction

Growing awareness that food loss and waste (FLW) is a global phenomenon and covers the decrease in mass (quantitative) or nutritional value (qualitative) of food, has prompted a plethora of “solutions” and strategies. This chapter discusses FLW from the view of the supply chain and extends the scope of SCM. Generally, supply chain management (SCM) scope is from raw materials to consumption. However, SCM has a great influence on FLW. The international commitment by the United Nations (2015) includes the issue of FLW in the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 12.3, which aims to “halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including postharvest losses” by 2030. While FLW occurs throughout the whole supply chain from farm to bin and beyond, Gustavsson et al. (2011) differentiates between food losses occurring during production and processing and food waste occurring at the retail and final consumption stage, i.e., household and foodservice providers. Nevertheless, usually both terms are considered together as FLW.

Before the pandemic, up to 30 to 50% of all food produced — approximately 1.2 to two billion tons —was lost or wasted every year on its way to people's stomachs (Institutions of Mechanical Engineers, 2013). FLW amounts reached roughly US$ 680 billion in industrialized countries and US$ 310 billion in developing countries (FAO, 2013). In low-income countries, more than 40% of the FLW occurs during postharvest (and processing), while in developed countries more than 40% of the FLW occurs at retail and consumer stages (Gustavsson, Dederberg and Sonesson, 2011). Furthermore, FLW also detracts from the resources used to produce food: losses of 250 km3/year of water and 28% of the world's agricultural area (FAO, 2013). Moreover, the carbon footprint of FLW has been estimated at 3.3 billion tons of CO₂ equivalent per year. The total greenhouse gas emissions are emitted not only from energy generation and industry as well as transport, but also through FLW decomposition itself (FAO, 2013). In this context, its nutritional, economic, environmental, and social implications have been recognized not only at the highest levels of global governance by the SDGs (United Nations, 2015) and the EU Farm to Fork (F2F) strategy for sustainable food (EC, 2020) but also in the literature (cf., Lemaire and Limbourg, 2019). Indeed, the Covid-19 pandemic has created disruptions (Hobbs, 2020) of varying severity in the supply chain from farm to bin. Around the world, generally, farmers' biggest buyers are the foodservice industry, including food processors, restaurants, universities canteens, etc. COVID-19 social and physical distancing rules and restrictions have forced many of these places to scale or shut down their operations. A shortage of goods and services has been observed and experienced. In others, as many food businesses or retailers close or need to adapt, farmers and food producers are left with more commodities and food than they can market and sell, i.e., food cannot reach end consumers, is processed or ends up in bin. To counteract FLW, logistics is a vital element of the agri-food sector (Fredriksson and Liljestrand, 2015). It includes both cold and ambient agri-food logistics based on precise planning, execution, and efficient monitoring to effectively manage the movement of food products on-time from farm to bin and beyond.

However, the literature shows that FLW from farm to bin during the pandemic and the potential of agri-food logistics have been largely overlooked. New logistic management and business models increasingly using digital technologies and services play a key role (Niewiadomski, 2020). Despite these advances, the “guidance dimension” is still considered one of the most acute knowledge gaps in the transformation, hampering its development (Korhonen et al., 2018a; Hobson, 2020).