Food Rescue Intervention Evaluations: A Systematic Review

Amelie A. Hecht and Roni A. Neff
Additional contact information
Amelie A. Hecht: Department of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA
Roni A. Neff: Department of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 23, 1-22

Abstract: Food rescue, the practice of gathering food that could otherwise be wasted and redirecting it for human consumption, represents a critical opportunity to improve food security and reduce waste. As global interest in reducing hunger and food waste grows, better insight is needed to assess and compare the effectiveness of different models of food rescue. We conducted a systematic review of peer-reviewed studies evaluating food rescue interventions with the aim of synthesizing findings and comparing methodologies. We searched PubMed, Academic Search Ultimate, and Science Citation Index for studies published worldwide, in English, through June 2019. Studies were included that: a) evaluated an existing or proposed food rescue intervention and, b) quantitatively or qualitatively measured the intervention impact. All nineteen included studies were observational and the intervention types ranged widely. The most commonly reported metric was the weight of food recovered. Few studies reported client outcome measures. The included studies suggested promising effects of food rescue interventions, including positive return on investment, decreased environmental burden, large quantities of food rescued and clients served, and high stakeholder satisfaction. Comparison across studies was challenging, however, due to inconsistent metrics and insufficiently detailed methodology. This review documents a need for additional evaluation of food rescue interventions and recommends a standardized methodology. Additional dialogue among key stakeholders is warranted to develop consistent, meaningful metrics to assess food rescue.

Keywords: food recovery; food rescue; food redistribution; wasted food; food security; methodology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/23/6718/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/23/6718/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:23:p:6718-:d:291426

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().