IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/recore/v125y2017icp188-197.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Assessing food losses and waste with a methodological framework: Insights from a case study

Author

Listed:
  • Chaboud, Géraldine

Abstract

Despite growing concerns about food losses and waste (FLW), research that focuses on FLW, especially along food supply chains (FSC), frequently uses unsatisfactory methodology and fails to provide clear results. The article reviews the existing methodological gaps with the aim of proposing a methodological framework for assessing and reporting FLW. The methodological framework was applied to a case study conducted on the “traditional” tomato supply chain in Cali (Colombia) from a waste management perspective. Interviews and surveys were carried out with farmers, traders (wholesalers, middlemen) and corner stores. The quantitative levels of FLW are presented. Empirical results show that unsold tomatoes are frequently used for different purposes. The quantity or rate of FLW alone may not be sufficient to justify the research interest and guide policy intervention: data may conceal more important issues, such as questions of food safety and health risks or economic losses. From a methodological perspective, it would be interesting to test the applicability of the framework to other aspects of FLW (e.g. qualitative FLW) and to wider case studies (e.g. households).

Suggested Citation

  • Chaboud, Géraldine, 2017. "Assessing food losses and waste with a methodological framework: Insights from a case study," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 188-197.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:recore:v:125:y:2017:i:c:p:188-197
    DOI: 10.1016/j.resconrec.2017.06.008
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921344917301623
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.resconrec.2017.06.008?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christiaensen,Luc & Kaminski,Jonathan & Christiaensen,Luc & Kaminski,Jonathan, 2014. "Post-harvest loss in Sub-Saharan Africa -- what do farmers say ?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6831, The World Bank.
    2. Thyberg, Krista L. & Tonjes, David J., 2016. "Drivers of food waste and their implications for sustainable policy development," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 110-123.
    3. Buzby, Jean C. & Hyman, Jeffrey, 2012. "Total and per capita value of food loss in the United States," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 561-570.
    4. Dorward, Leejiah J., 2012. "Where are the best opportunities for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the food system (including the food chain)? A comment," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 463-466.
    5. Martin Medina, 2008. "The Informal recycling Sector in Developing Countries : Organizing Waste Pickers to Enhance their Impact," World Bank Publications - Reports 10586, The World Bank Group.
    6. Sharma, Gaurav & Singh, S.P., 2011. "Economic Analysis of Post-harvest Losses in Marketing of Vegetables in Uttarakhand," Agricultural Economics Research Review, Agricultural Economics Research Association (India), vol. 24(2), December.
    7. Kumar, D. Kishor & Basavaraja, H. & Mahajanshetti, S.B., 2006. "An Economic Analysis of Post-Harvest Losses in Vegetables in Karnataka," Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics, Indian Society of Agricultural Economics, vol. 61(1), pages 1-13.
    8. Affognon, Hippolyte & Mutungi, Christopher & Sanginga, Pascal & Borgemeister, Christian, 2015. "Unpacking Postharvest Losses in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Meta-Analysis," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 49-68.
    9. Cardoen, Dennis & Joshi, Piyush & Diels, Ludo & Sarma, Priyangshu M. & Pant, Deepak, 2015. "Agriculture biomass in India: Part 2. Post-harvest losses, cost and environmental impacts," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 143-153.
    10. Priefer, Carmen & Jörissen, Juliane & Bräutigam, Klaus-Rainer, 2016. "Food waste prevention in Europe – A cause-driven approach to identify the most relevant leverage points for action," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 155-165.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Beata Bilska & Marzena Tomaszewska & Danuta Kołożyn-Krajewska, 2022. "The Management of Meals in Food Service Establishments in the Context of Food Waste—Results of Focus Group Interviews with Employees and Owners," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(15), pages 1-17, July.
    2. Klara Strecker & Verena Bitzer & Froukje Kruijssen, 2022. "Critical stages for post-harvest losses and nutrition outcomes in the value chains of bush beans and nightshade in Uganda," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 14(2), pages 411-426, April.
    3. Li Jia & Guanghua Qiao, 2022. "Quantification, Environmental Impact, and Behavior Management: A Bibliometric Analysis and Review of Global Food Waste Research Based on CiteSpace," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(18), pages 1-24, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Enoch Mutebi Kikulwe & Stanslus Okurut & Susan Ajambo & Kephas Nowakunda & Dietmar Stoian & Diego Naziri, 2018. "Postharvest Losses and their Determinants: A Challenge to Creating a Sustainable Cooking Banana Value Chain in Uganda," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(7), pages 1-19, July.
    2. Chaboud, Géraldine & Moustier, Paule, 2021. "The role of diverse distribution channels in reducing food loss and waste: The case of the Cali tomato supply chain in Colombia," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    3. Eriksson, Mattias & Ghosh, Ranjan & Mattsson, Lisa & Ismatov, Alisher, 2017. "Take-back agreements in the perspective of food waste generation at the supplier-retailer interface," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 83-93.
    4. Daniel Faibil & Martin Agyemang & Owusu Amponsah & Himanshu Gupta & Simonov Kusi-Sarpong, 2021. "Assessing drivers of post-harvest losses: tangible and intangible resources’ perspective," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(11), pages 15785-15829, November.
    5. Clark, Lisa F. & Hobbs, Jill E., 2018. "Beyond the Farm Gate: Postharvest Loss and the Role of Agro‐Processors in Sub‐Saharan African Food Security," International Journal on Food System Dynamics, International Center for Management, Communication, and Research, vol. 9(3), June.
    6. Minten, Bart & Engida, Ermias & Tamru, Seneshaw, 2016. "How big are post-harvest losses in Ethiopia? Evidence from teff," ESSP working papers 93, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    7. Bachewe Fantu & Minten Bart & Seyoum Taffesse Alemayehu & Pauw Karl & Cameron Alethia & Genye Endaylalu Tirsit, 2020. "Farmers’ Grain Storage and Losses in Ethiopia," Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization, De Gruyter, vol. 18(1), pages 1-19, January.
    8. Lingfei Wang & Yuqin Yang & Guoyan Wang, 2022. "The Clean Your Plate Campaign: Resisting Table Food Waste in an Unstable World," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-17, April.
    9. Vandercasteelen, Joachim & Christiaensen, Luc, 2020. "Breaking down silos: On post-harvest loss interventions in Tanzania," Policy briefs 1247693176, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    10. Zaid Alshabanat & Abdulrahman Alkhorayef & Hedi Ben Haddad & Imed Mezghani & Abdessalem Gouider & Adel Tlili & Mohamed. A. Allouche & Kais A. Gannouni, 2021. "Quantifying Food Loss and Waste in Saudi Arabia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(16), pages 1-21, August.
    11. Jannike Wichern & Mark T. Wijk & Katrien Descheemaeker & Romain Frelat & Piet J. A. Asten & Ken E. Giller, 2017. "Food availability and livelihood strategies among rural households across Uganda," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 9(6), pages 1385-1403, December.
    12. Chegere, Martin Julius, 2018. "Post-harvest losses reduction by small-scale maize farmers: The role of handling practices," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 103-115.
    13. Mohammad Al-Tamimi & John De-Clerk Azure & Ramakrishnan Ramanathan, 2023. "Corporate Reporting on Food Waste by UK Seafood Companies: Literature Review and an Assessment of Current Practices," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(2), pages 1-16, January.
    14. Margareta Amy Lelea & Chemeda Abedeta Garbaba & Abera Guluma & Oliver Hensel, 2022. "Gendering post-harvest loss research: responsibilities of women and men to manage maize after harvest in southwestern Ethiopia," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 14(4), pages 951-963, August.
    15. M. S. Sibomana & T. S. Workneh & K. Audain, 2016. "A review of postharvest handling and losses in the fresh tomato supply chain: a focus on Sub-Saharan Africa," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 8(2), pages 389-404, April.
    16. Ambler, Kate & Brauw, Alan de & Godlonton, Susan, 2018. "Measuring postharvest losses at the farm level in Malawi," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 62(1), January.
    17. Basel F. Y. Khader & Yigezu A. Yigezu & Mahmud A. Duwayri & Abdul Aziz Niane & Kamil Shideed, 2019. "Where in the value chain are we losing the most food? The case of wheat in Jordan," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 11(5), pages 1009-1027, October.
    18. Tesfaye, Wondimagegn & Tirivayi, Nyasha, 2018. "The impacts of postharvest storage innovations on food security and welfare in Ethiopia," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 52-67.
    19. Steven J. R. Underhill & Yuchan Zhou & Shukrullah Sherzad & Lila Singh-Peterson & Semua Militini Tagoai, 2017. "Horticultural postharvest loss in municipal fruit and vegetable markets in Samoa," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 9(6), pages 1373-1383, December.
    20. Dzanku, F.M. & Osei, R.D., 2018. "Impact of pre– and post-harvest training reminders on crop losses and food poverty in Mali," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 275924, International Association of Agricultural Economists.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:recore:v:125:y:2017:i:c:p:188-197. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kai Meng (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/resources-conservation-and-recycling .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.