Measuring Food Loss and Waste Costs in the Italian Potato Chip Industry Using Material Flow Cost Accounting

Vera Amicarelli, Brian Roe and Christian Bux
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Vera Amicarelli: Department of Economics, Management and Business Law, University of Bari Aldo Moro, 70124 Bari, Italy

Agriculture, 2022, vol. 12, issue 4, 1-16

Abstract: Material flow cost accounting (MFCA) represents an innovative tool to identify inefficiencies in the use of resources in agribusiness, measuring either mass flows or costs incurred along the entire supply chain. The purpose of the article is to estimate the meso-level ecological and economic impacts of food loss and waste in the Italian salty snack sector before and during the COVID-19 lockdown by applying MFCA. Furthermore, in the light of the European Commission Delegated Decision 2019/1597, it aims to assess whether MFCA is a suitable tool to support food waste management along the entire food supply, discussing implications for researchers, academics and managers, as well as for public authorities. The research explores potato chip production from the agricultural stage (either considering plant cultivation and harvest) to the final consumption stage. The functional unit is 1 ton of unpackaged chips produced. The Italian lockdown spurred an intense upsurge in snacking activities (i.e., the consumption of salty snacks), justifying the need to investigate an agri-food segment often overlooked from an economic, resources and waste management perspective. It emerges that the “chips system” generates production valued at EUR 461 million (78%) and costs associated with food loss and waste that exceed EUR 131 million (22%), revealing an economically important potential for savings through a reduction in undesirable negative material flows, or through the valorization of previously hidden material losses according to circular economy paradigms. This suggests that the company-level adoption of appropriate material and financial accounting systems could enhance both internal savings and collective benefits towards sustainable resources and waste management.

Keywords: agri-food sector; material flow analysis; material flow cost accounting; food loss; food waste; financial savings; end-of-life approach (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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