Food waste in Russian retail: Methodological approaches and quantitative assessment

The lack of complete and reliable information on the volume of food waste generated in the retail segment is still an urgent problem. The estimates available in the literature, both at the global level and for individual countries, often are not based on any methodology but on private opinion of experts. The article presents a quantitative assessment of the scale of food waste generation in retail trade in Russia. Methodologically, the estimates are based on data from the accounting and non-financial statements of the largest retail chains. In 2022, food waste in Russia accounted for about 3% of the retail turnover of food products, or about 530 billion rubles. Estimates of waste in physical terms and per capita turned out to be comparable with UNEP data for Russia and some European countries. In recent years, the reduction of food waste has become the goal of the sustainable development policy of the largest retail chains in Russia. The developed methodology for collecting information on food waste, which is based on open sources and available data, will allow tracking the current state of this problem, as well as including new retail chains in the research framework.