Food Loss and Waste in Meat Sector—Why the Consumption Stage Generates the Most Losses?

Małgorzata Karwowska, Sylwia Łaba and Krystian Szczepański
Additional contact information
Małgorzata Karwowska: Department of Animal Raw Materials Technology, Faculty of Food Science and Biotechnology, University of Life Sciences in Lublin, Skromna 8 Street, 20-704 Lublin, Poland
Sylwia Łaba: Institute of Environmental Protection—National Research Institute (IEP-NRI), Krucza Street 5/11D, 00-548 Warsaw, Poland
Krystian Szczepański: Institute of Environmental Protection—National Research Institute (IEP-NRI), Krucza Street 5/11D, 00-548 Warsaw, Poland

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 11, 1-13

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to present data on the scale of food waste in the meat sector and to emphasize the need to disseminate measures to reduce the number of losses in this sector. The article discusses food loss and waste in the meat sector as a current, widespread and serious problem. The Web of Science database was searched up to March 2021 to find publications reporting studies of the food loss and waste with particular emphasis on the meat sector. Due to the relatively high consumption of meat and meat products, the level of losses during production and of product waste by consumers in consumer stage becomes significant. It is estimated that as much as 23% of production in the meat sector is lost and wasted. The largest share is generated at the consumption level, representing 64% of the total food waste, followed by manufacturing (20%), distribution (12%) and primary production and post-harvest (3.5%). Data on food losses and wastage in the meat sector are very limited, and at the same time the production of meat and meat products is characterized by an unfavorable impact on the environment (meat has the highest emissions per kilogram of food compared to other food products), which requires rational management of these products in the entire chain (production, processing, transport and consumer stage). Therefore, determining the size and causes of formation as well as the methods of reducing food losses and food waste throughout the meat sector is important both for economic and environmental reasons. The idea behind food loss and waste reduction should be as an opportunity to improve efficiency within businesses, redirect food to those who need it and reduce environmental impacts.

Keywords: food loss; food waste; meat sector (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/11/6227/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/11/6227/ (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:13:y:2021:i:11:p:6227-:d:566811

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 ().