Abstract

Food waste is a major problem in modern society and carries considerable social, economic and environmental costs. Food production causes greenhouse gas emissions along the entire food supply chain and wasting food means that those emissions are produced in vain. There is consensus that food waste has to be reduced. For example, the EU and some of its member countries have set concrete targets to reduce the amount of waste. However, in order to achieve the overall goal of a more sustainable economy, not only quantitative but also environmental indicators have to be considered when pursuing waste reduction goals. This study analysed the discrepancies between the waste quantity and wastage carbon footprint (CF) profiles of perishable food products wasted in Swedish supermarkets.The wastage CF, defined as the product CF from cradle up to and including delivery to the retailer times the amount of the product wasted at the store, was calculated for products in the meat, deli, cheese, dairy and fruit & vegetable departments of six Swedish supermarkets. The CF from cradle to retailer of the various products was determined based on existing life cycle assessment (LCA) literature. Emissions due to production and transportation were considered. Data on wasted mass of the products in the period 2010-2012 was provided by the Swedish retail chain Willys. Data on bread waste are mainly held by the bakeries, and were thus not included in the study.Over a three-year period, 1570 t of fresh food (excluding bread) were wasted in the six supermarkets. The associated total wastage CF was 2500 t CO(2)e. The fruit & vegetable department contributed 85% of the wasted mass and 46% of the total wastage CF. The meat department contributed 3.5% of the wasted mass, while it accounted for 29% of the total wastage CF. The wastage CF of each department tended to be highly concentrated in certain products and thus halving the waste of the top three products in each department could save more than 25 t CO(2)e per store and year. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords

Greenhouse gas emissions; Food waste; Retail store; LCA

Published in

Resources, Conservation and Recycling
2015, Volume: 94, pages: 56-65
Publisher: ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV

SLU Authors

• Eriksson, Mattias

  • Department of Energy and Technology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Strid, Ingrid

  • Department of Energy and Technology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

Sustainable Development Goals

End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture
Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns


UKÄ Subject classification

Environmental Management
Environmental Sciences


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2014.11.016

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/69089