Sustainable Consumption by Reducing Food Waste: A Review of the Current State and Directions for Future Research

Almost one third of all food produced in the world currently goes to waste. One of the targets under the ‘Responsible consumption and production’ sustainable development goal calls for halving the per capita food waste at the consumer level as well as across the supply chain from manufacturing, storage and retail by 2030. While numerous strategies have been recommended and implemented to address this problem, major challenges remain to be overcome. The paper presents an in-depth review of current state-of-art practices in food waste management. The solutions and recommendations presented to reduce food waste at the household, retail, restaurant, manufacturing and supply chain levels are reviewed. Regulations and regional variations in food waste management practices are also examined. The findings are used to identify research gaps and propose a conceptual framework to increase closed-loop material flow for more circular food systems that can reduce food waste. Potential areas for application of engineering and management principles to develop analytical models for food waste reduction are also discussed.