From Waste to Plate: Exploring the Impact of Food Waste Valorisation on Achieving Zero Hunger

Rose Daphnee Tchonkouang, Helen Onyeaka () and Taghi Miri
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Rose Daphnee Tchonkouang: MED—Mediterranean Institute for Agriculture, Environment and Development, CHANGE—Global Change and Sustainability Institute, Faculty of Sciences and Technology, Universidade do Algarve, Campus de Gambelas, 8005-139 Faro, Portugal
Helen Onyeaka: School of Chemical Engineering, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK
Taghi Miri: School of Chemical Engineering, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 13, 1-21

Abstract: Hunger (811 million people, 2020) and food waste (931 million tonnes annually, 2020) are long-standing interconnected challenges that have plagued humankind for centuries. Food waste originates from various sources, including consumption habits and failures within the food supply chain. Given the growing concerns regarding food insecurity, malnutrition, and hunger, there is a pressing need to recover and repurpose as much food waste as possible. A growing body of knowledge identifies the valorisation (including upcycling) of food waste as one of the strategies to fight hunger by positively impacting food availability and food security. This paper evaluates the potential role of food waste valorisation, including upcycling, in reducing global hunger. A literature search was conducted to examine how converting food waste into value-added products, such as food formulations and farming inputs, can contribute to increasing food availability. The benefits of waste-to-food operations in improving food availability through producing food ingredients and products from materials that would have been wasted or discarded otherwise were discussed.

Keywords: SDG 2: zero hunger; food waste; valorisation; food security; sustainability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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