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Sustainable Management of Food Basics

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What is Wasted Food and Where Does it Come From?

Conserving resources and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, helping people, saving money, sources of statistics, what is sustainable management of food.

Sustainable Management of Food is an approach that seeks to reduce wasted food and its associated impacts over the entire life cycle, starting with the use of natural resources, manufacturing, sales, consumption, and ending with decisions on recovery or final disposal. 

EPA works to promote innovation and highlight the value and efficient management of food as a resource. Through the sustainable management of food, we can conserve resources for future generations, reduce greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change, help businesses and consumers save money, and provide access to food for those who do not have enough to eat. To build a circular economy for all, EPA seeks to highlight opportunities to use raw materials more efficiently, enable those resources to be used for their highest value, and recover valuable resources from discarded materials in ways that address climate change, are inclusive of all communities, address environmental justice concerns, and help spur new innovation and economic growth. 

The term “ wasted food ” describes food that was not used for its intended purpose and is managed in a variety of ways described below. EPA uses the overarching term “wasted food” instead of “food waste” for food that was not used for its intended purpose because it conveys that a valuable resource is being wasted, whereas “food waste” implies that the food no longer has value and needs to be managed as waste.

  • Wasted food is an overarching term to describe food that was not used for its intended purpose and is managed in a variety of ways, such as donation to feed people, creation of animal feed, composting, anaerobic digestion, or disposal in landfills or combustion facilities. Examples include unsold food from retail stores; plate waste, uneaten prepared food, or kitchen trimmings from restaurants, cafeterias, and households; or by-products from food and beverage processing facilities. The term wasted food can be used to refer to both excess food and food waste.
  • Excess food (or surplus food) often refers to food that is donated to feed people.
  • Food waste often refers to food not ultimately consumed by humans that is discarded or recycled, such as plate waste (i.e., food that has been served but not eaten), spoiled food, or peels and rinds considered inedible. For purposes of Sustainable Development Goal Target 12.3, food waste occurs at the retail, food service, and residential levels and is managed by landfill; controlled combustion; sewer; litter, discards and refuse; co/anaerobic digestion; compost/aerobic digestion; and land application.
  • Food loss often refers to unused product from the agricultural sector, such as unharvested crops. For purposes of Sustainable Development Goal Target 12.3, food loss occurs from production up to (and not including) the retail level.

EPA encourages anyone managing wasted food to reference the Wasted Food Scale , which prioritizes actions that can be taken to prevent and divert wasted food from disposal. The most preferred pathways – prevent wasted food, donate and upcycle food – offer the most benefits to the environment, to communities, and to a circular economy.

Why is Sustainable Management of Food Important?

Wasted food is both a growing problem and an untapped opportunity.  In 2019 alone, EPA estimates that about 66 million tons of wasted food were generated in the food retail, food service, and residential sectors, and most of this waste (about 60%) was sent to landfills. EPA estimated that in 2018 in the U.S., more food reached landfills and combustion facilities than any other single material in our everyday trash (24 percent of the amount landfilled and 22 percent of the amount combusted with energy recovery). Additionally, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that in 2010, 31 percent or 133 billion pounds of the 430 billion pounds of food available at the retail and consumer levels was not eaten, valued at almost $162 billion. 1   Globally, the United Nations estimates that approximately one-third of all food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted – 14 percent of food is lost before reaching retail, and 17 percent may be wasted from retail to consumer. 2 , 3 At the same time, food loss and waste generates nearly eight percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. 4

When food is wasted, so is the opportunity to nourish people. When food is wasted, so are all the resources that went into producing, processing, distributing, and preparing that food.

Taking simple steps in your everyday life can make a difference in addressing this issue. Reducing wasted food is a triple win; it's good for the environment, for communities, and for the economy.

Reducing wasted food does great things for the environment:

  • Saves Resources –  When food is wasted, it also wastes the resources – such as the land, water, energy, and labor – that go into growing, storing, processing, distributing, and preparing that food. Each year, food loss and waste take up an area of agricultural land the size of California and New York combined. This is enough energy to power 50 million U.S. homes for a year, and generate emissions (excluding landfill emissions) equal to the annual carbon dioxide emissions of 42 coal-fired power plants. 5
  • Reduces Greenhouse Gas Emissions – The majority of greenhouse gas emissions from wasted food results from activities prior to disposal, including production, transport, processing, and distribution. Once food goes uneaten, it must be managed through one of various pathways, such as donation, upcycling, composting, anaerobic digestion, or landfilling – all of which also produce greenhouse gas emissions. To reduce these emissions, we need to prevent food from being wasted in the first place and sustainably manage what wasted food cannot be prevented.
  • Reduces Methane from Landfills – When wasted food goes to a landfill, the nutrients in the food never return to the soil. The wasted food rots and produces methane, a greenhouse gas 25 times as potent as CO2 at trapping heat in the atmosphere. EPA estimates that wasted food is responsible for 58% of landfill methane emissions to the atmosphere. 6
  • Returns Nutrients to the Soil – Even when we take all actions to use wasted food, certain inedible parts remain and can be turned into compost to feed and nourish the soil. Composting these wastes  creates a product that can be used to help improve soils, grow the next generation of crops, and improve water quality.
  • Supports a Circular Economy – Preventing food from being wasted, using food for its highest value which is to nourish humans, and recovering valuable nutrients from wasted food are all activities that support a circular economy by reducing stress on natural resources, empowering communities, growing local economies, and spurring innovation.

In 2021, the EPA released the first of two reports in a series on the environmental impacts of wasted food to inform domestic policymakers, researchers, and the public about the environmental benefits that can be achieved by reducing U.S. food loss and waste. The Part 1 report, From Farm to Kitchen: The Environmental Impacts of U.S. Food Waste , examines the environmental impacts of wasted food from production to consumption. We released  the Part 2, From Field to Bin: The Environmental Impacts of U.S. Food Waste Management Pathways , in 2023, which completes the analysis by examining the different ways wasted food is managed.

Preventing and sustainably managing wasted food and recovering wholesome, nutritious food can help you make a difference in your community:

  • Feed Children – The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that five million children lived in food-insecure households in 2021. 7 By redirecting food that would otherwise be wasted to homes and schools, we can help feed our country’s children.
  • Build Cleaner Communities – Reducing waste and improving waste management can help create cleaner communities. Equitable access to food and processing wasted food into soil amendments can improve soil health, generate renewable energy, and keep economic and job benefits of organics recycling in those communities.
  • Create Job Opportunities – Recovering and recycling wasted food through donation, salvaging, processing, anaerobic digestion, and composting strengthens infrastructure and creates jobs. Food recycling in these sectors employs more than 36,000 people, supporting local economies and promoting innovation. 8
  • Feed the World – According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, from between 702 and 828 million people were affected by hunger in 2021. 9 They predict that by eliminating food loss and wasted food we would have enough food to feed all the chronically undernourished. They also expect that we would not have to increase food production or put additional pressure on our natural resources to do so. 10

When we waste food, we’re not just creating a problem, we’re also missing an opportunity to save businesses and consumers money:

  • Waste Less and Spend Less – You or your organization can spend less and waste less by buying only the food you will use. Preventing wasted food can also reduce energy and labor costs associated with throwing away good food. 
  • Pay Less for Trash Pickup – Organizations might pay less for trash pickup by keeping wasted food out of the garbage. Some haulers lower fees if wasted food is separated from the trash and sent to an organics recycling facility instead of the landfill.
  • Receive Tax Benefits by Donating – If you donate healthy, safe, and edible food to hungry people, your organization can claim tax benefits. The Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Act protects food donors from legal liability.
  • United States Department of Agriculture,  The Estimated Amount, Value, and Calories of Postharvest Food Losses at the Retail and Consumer Levels in the United States .
  • Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, The State of Food and Agriculture 2019. Moving Forward on Food Loss and Waste Reduction (pdf) (13.2 MB, 2019) . 
  • United Nations Environment Programme, Food Waste Index Report 2021 .
  • Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Food wastage footprint & Climate Change (pdf) (5.4 MB, 2015) .
  • United States Environmental Protection Agency, From Farm to Kitchen: The Environmental Impacts of Food Waste (pdf) (11.8 MB, 2021) . 
  • United States Environmental Protection Agency, Quantifying Methane Emissions from Landfilled Food Waste (PDF)   (1.77 MB, 2023)
  • United States Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service, Food Security in the U.S.: Key Statistics & Graphs .
  • United States Environmental Protection Agency, Advancing Sustainable Materials Management: 2016 Recycling Economic Information Report Methodology (pdf) (2.4 MB, 2016) .
  • Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, International Fund for Agriculture Development, the World Food Programme, and the World Health Organization, The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2022. Repurposing food and agricultural policies to make healthy diets more affordable .
  • Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, International Fund for Agriculture Development and the World Food Programme, The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2014. Strengthening the enabling environment for food security and nutrition (pdf) (3 MB, 2014) .
  • Sustainable Management of Food Home
  • Wasted Food Scale
  • Prevention through Source Reduction
  • Donating Food
  • Anaerobic Digestion
  • Preventing Wasted Food at Home
  • Tools for Preventing and Diverting Wasted Food
  • Funding Opportunities and EPA Programs Related to the Food System
  • Local and Regional Resources
  • Data on Wasted Food in the U.S.

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PolicyMatters

Food Waste: An Introduction to the Issue and Questions that Remain

Food waste is a problem throughout the supply chain and across the globe that is increasingly capturing the attention of policymakers. Gustavsson et al. (2011) estimated that one-third of the food produced for consumption globally is lost or wasted. Within the U.S., Buzby et al. (2014) estimated that 31% of food available at the retail and consumer levels was wasted, which translates to a loss of $161 billion and 141 trillion calories per year (enough calories to feed ~ 193,000,000 people a daily diet of 2,000 calories for a year!) – not to mention the loss of the (scarce) resource inputs like land, water, and energy that went into food production.

How is food waste defined?

Discussions on food waste may also reference the term “food loss”; the terms sound synonymous, but there are distinctions between the two. An ERS report by Buzby et al. (2014) uses the following definitions for food loss and food waste:

  • “ Food loss represents the amount of edible food, postharvest, that is available for human consumption but is not consumed for any reason. It includes cooking loss and natural shrinkage; loss from mold, pests, or inadequate climate control; and plate waste.”
  • “ Food waste is a component of food loss and occurs when an edible item goes unconsumed, such as food discarded by retailers due to undesirable color or blemishes and plate waste discarded by consumers.”

Efforts to address food loss have been ongoing in developing countries, such as improvements in harvesting and storage technology, biological controls, etc. For more on research addressing food loss (postharvest loss), see Affognon et al. (2015) and Hodges et al. (2011). Conversely, efforts to address food waste have been more recent. The remainder of this article focuses on the more narrowly defined issue of food waste.

What is being done to reduce food waste?

The costs of food waste (economic and otherwise) have driven efforts in both the public and private sectors to reduce food waste along the supply chain. In the public sector, there are national and international initiatives ( U.S. Food Waste Challenge and SAVE FOOD Initiative , respectively) that set waste reduction goals and are designed to facilitate knowledge sharing and best practices for waste reduction across the supply chain. Further, there has been an increase in legislation related to food waste. In the U.S., legislation was introduced to clarify date labeling (“sell by”, “use by”, “best by”, etc.) on food products. In France, a new law was passed that bans supermarkets from throwing away unsold food; instead, they will be required to donate it (Chrisafis, 2016). Although less recent, the South Korean government implemented a volume-based food waste fee system in 2010 where households are forced to pay based on the weight of their waste.

In the private sector, we have also seen the formation of knowledge-sharing groups (e.g., Food Waste Reduction Alliance ). In addition, many technological solutions have been introduced that are designed to help track waste (e.g., LeanPath ), more optimally plan, shop and cook, donate leftovers, and so on (Hutcherson, 2013). Finally, there has been an increase in the selling of “ugly” fruits and vegetables (those fruits and vegetables that would not normally comply with the cosmetic standards required by retailers). The movement is credited to a grocery retailer in France (Intermarche) but has quickly expanded.  Major U.S. retailers such as Walmart and Whole Foods are offering “ugly” fruits and vegetables in their produce sections.  Both efforts are currently in pilot phase, but with the intention to expand (see Godoy, 2016 for more information).

Questions that remain about food waste

While many reports and food waste reduction initiatives in the public and private sectors identify households (consumers) as one of the biggest sources of food waste, there has been little research to understand how households actually make decisions on throwing out food. Further, this decision is rarely framed as an economic decision, with costs and benefits. There are most certainly cases where the decision to waste may be optimal, depending on one’s preferences, incentives, and resource constraints. For instance, an individual may prefer to throw out milk that is several days past the expiration date rather than run the risk of becoming ill. In discussing his household production model, Becker (1965) suggests that Americans should be more wasteful than people in developing countries because the opportunity cost of their time exceeds the market prices of food and other goods. Thus, it will be critical for future research to account for the different factors that play a role in the keep/waste decision to determine the tradeoffs consumers make in this process.

In addition to examining the waste decision in economic terms, it will be important to explore the heterogeneity across consumers when making these decisions. In other words, we may be able to identify that, in general, consumers will be more averse to wasting food when the cost of that food was high or when there is a replacement readily available; however, some types of people may be even more or less responsive to such factors than the average person. Research has already suggested that income may impact a household’s likelihood of wasting food (Becker, 1965; Daniel, 2016; Qi and Roe, 2016); however, other factors such as age, education, SNAP participation, etc. should also be examined. Understanding these differences may enable policymakers or advocacy groups to better tailor educational efforts to high-waste households.

A final question related to household food waste is: how do we motivate households to change their behavior? Though many ideas come to mind (e.g., education campaigns, waste taxes or waste reduction subsidies, changes in portion sizes or packaging), the answer to this question will likely depend on the household waste decision process, so it is imperative to understand this first before making policy recommendations.

Future articles on food waste will provide insight on some of my own research in this area, including preliminary results from an online survey where we attempt to learn more about the household waste decision process. Additionally, I will share information on my ongoing plate waste study in the University of Illinois dining halls.

References:

Affognon, Hippolyte, Christopher Mutungi, Pascal Sanginga, and Christian Borgemeister. 2015. “Unpacking Postharvest Losses in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Meta-Analysis.” World Development , 66:49-68.

Becker, Gary S. 1965. “A Theory on the Allocation of Time.” The Economic Journal , 75(299):493-517.

Buzby, Jean C., Hodan F. Wells, and Jeffrey Hyman. 2014. “The Estimated Amount, Value, and Calories of Postharvest Food Losses at the Retail and Consumer Levels in the United States.” USDA Economic Research Service, Washington, DC, USA.

Chrisafis, Angelique. 2016. “French Law Forbids Food Waste by Supermarkets.” The Guardian , Available at http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/07/20/486664266/walmart-world-s-largest-grocer-is-now-selling-ugly-fruit-and-veg .

Daniel, Caitlin. 2016. “Economic Constraints on Taste Formation and the True Cost of Healthy Eating.” Social Science & Medicine , 148:34-41.

Godoy, Maria. 2016. “Wal-Mart, America’s Largest Grocer, Is Now Selling Ugly Fruit and Vegetables.” NPR The Salt , Available at http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/07/20/486664266/walmart-world-s-largest-grocer-is-now-selling-ugly-fruit-and-veg .

Gustavsson, Jenny, Christel Cederberg, Ulf Sonesson, Robert van Otterdijk, and Alexandre Meybeck. 2011. “Global Food Losses and Food Waste: Extent, Causes and Prevention.” Food and Agricultural Organization, Rome, Italy.

Hodges, R. J., J. C. Buzby, and B. Bennett. 2011. “Postharvest Losses and Waste in Developed and Less Developed Countries: Opportunities to Improve Resource Use.” Journal of Agricultural Science , 149:37-45.

Hutcherson, Aaron. 2013. “Waste Not, Want Not: 6 Technologies to Reduce Food Waste.” Food+Tech Connect. Available at https://foodtechconnect.com/2013/10/02/waste-not-want-not-6-technologies-to-reduce-food-waste/ .

Qi, Danyi, and Brian E. Roe. 2016. “Household Food Waste: Multivariate Regression and Principal Components Analyses of Awareness and Attitudes among U.S. Consumers.” PLoS ONE , 11(7): e0159250.

food loss , food waste , SNAP

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Food Waste Management

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Background Of The Study

The food wasted across all developing countries is about 1.3 billion tones food is wasted globally each year, one third of all food produced for human consumption. This is staggering given that food waste creates serious constraints on essential factors of production such as energy and capital along with continuing stress on vital natural resources like land and water. The FAO identifies that, The amount of food lost or wasted costs 2.6 trillion USD annually and is more than enough to feed all the 815 million hungry people in the world about four times over. Now a huge difference is created at here, one to ten in per capita waste between the developing and developed countries. However, as the developing block contributes to more Than 40% of the global population, the difference in absolute waste is reduced to just one to two. Therefore a drastic trend is occur in food waste extends to societies where millions still suffer from hunger and malnutrition(diseases due to less feeding).

A recent report from FOA (2015) estimates that approximately 800 Million people around the world do not have enough food, and at that place the hunger and malnutrition create a great risk for human life. Black et al. (2013) estimate that under the nutrition in the aggregate including fetal growth restriction, stunning, wasting, and deficiencies of vitamin A and zinc with suboptimum breast feeding is a cause of 3.1 Million child deaths annually. If we can say in easy manner, we can say that around 1.3 Million tons or 32% of human produce is get wasted (FOA, 2011).

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The situation in Pakistan is not very different : 60% of population food is unsecure, while 44%of children under 5 years are stunted(The Agha Khan University, 2011). According to media reports ( Pakistan Environmental Protection agency, around 40% of finish food get wasted(Dawn, 2016). For this, the risk of hunger and malnutrition is increase day by day so we need to pay attention and action.

The developed countries is slowly beginning to reduce the food waste management by starting different programs and making new polices. Organizations such as waste Resources Action program in the United State kingdom and Rethink Food Waste through Economic and Data (ReFED) in USA specialize in quantifying losses due to food waste and identifying the strategies to stop them. Even, the US Administration declared 2015 as the year against food waste and they just gave a lot of attention to this issue. However, if we talk about Pakistan the issue of waste management is not yet given due consideration. There is no any survey or study has conducted on federal or provincial level to quantify the amount of food wasted, both in household and restaurants and to develop any policy recommendations officially.

At the same time there are some unofficial organizations that works for poor and hungry people. Recently several non-profit organization just started there service as a volunteer in order to create awareness to this issue. One of the such organizations is a Rizq that is started by three students of LUMS(DAWN, 2015). They just working on wasted food in restaurants in Pakistan.

According to FOA(2011), the main the main reason of food waste in low-income countries are mainly connected to financial, managerial, and technical limitations in harvesting techniques, storage and cooling facilities in difficult climate conditions, packaging and marketing systems.

Research Questions

  • How much food we can save on daily bases?
  • Is this helpful to save our scarce resources?
  • Is this helpful for development in this country?
  • Can we increase per capita income by this?

1.1 Research Objective:

1. Find out the direct and indirect techniques to store the food in order to reduce food waste.

Hypothesis Development

Null hypothesis: H0: “If food waste in Pakistan is zero, then people remain hungry”.

Alternative hypothesis: HA: “If food waste in Pakistan is zero, then no one remain hungry”.

Significance Of Research

We can save a bulk of food because Pakistan is under developing country and most of the population having low income, and financial conditions are also not good and due to this per capita income is also very low in Pakistan so it can be helpful to save our scarce resources and we can spend our income at right place(development of country).

Literature Review

Theoretical literature.

A small amount of literature is available on food waste management due to the less attention on this topic in the past few years. Papargyropoulou, Lozano, Steinberger, Wright, and Bin Ujang (2014) examine the factor that are the main cause of food waste and they also propose the framework to identify the most appropriate options for the prevention of food waste and how to manage it. In first, through minimization of food surplus and avoidable food waste is the best option. The second best option is available the distribution of food among poor people or who cannot afford the best food. In the same case, ReFED (2016) makes collaborative effort between food businesses, government, farmers, consumers to not only quantify the food loss that arises from different sectors but also start various business activities in order to reduce the food waste. They just provide three food waste solution (i) food waste prevention strategies (ii) food waste channelization and recovery (iii) food waste recycling. ReFED (2016) reported effective demand forecasting and cold chain management could be the some of the best ways to prevent food waste.

Empirical Literature

Food waste management is a dependent variable at here. So the other variables just as income, competition between different classes, attention, excess verity of food etc. are the independent variable. In this study, the binary logistic model (which have two possible answers) is used.

Methodology Literature

This part of study describes the methods and sampling techniques used to calculate the food waste in restaurants in Pakistan specifically in Lahore. This research is the combined study of quantitative and qualitative methods. The first focus is on the quality and characteristics of the research, and the second focus is on the empirical aspects of the research. The research method chosen is always based on the motivation of the subject and the viewpoints and preferences of the researcher. In addition, there is another method, the hybrid method, which contains both qualitative data analysis methods and quantitative data collection methods, and focuses on economic and empirical aspects as well as theoretical evidence and academic opinions.

Innocent A. Jereme, Chamhuri Siwar, Rawshan Ara Begum, Basri Abdul Talib et al (2016) in this research only the point of discussion is only waste food management, energy management and energy making, and supporting government policies, in this research no one talk about hungry people and about removing poverty.

Sabinne Lee and Kwangho Jung et al (2017) this research is revolving around food waste pollution and environment because south Korea is developed country that’s why they does not have issues about poverty and per capita income of every single person is very high. In contrast, in Pakistan there are too many issues about poverty because mostly people are jobless and day by day hunger of people is in increasing.

Methodology

On this topic only small amount of data is available and that is not sufficient for research because there is no any official research is conducted on food waste management in Pakistan that’s why there is need to collect data through both resources through primary as well as secondary. Secondary data is collected by recent secondary resources from books, newspapers, magazines and recent researches but primary data will be collected by different methods. The research is quantitative and deductive reasoning will be used to prove the already mentioned hypothesis (chapter 1) true or false.

Research design

This is exploratory research because there is no any large amount of data is available about this type of research, now this is conducted informally. This study will be combination of two designs Descriptive and exploratory. Data will be collected through Questionnaire to relation of variables with each other.

Data Collection

This research is based on both types of data quantitative and qualitative and different methods are used for data collection in this research primary data collection is done by survey sample and questionnaire design and structured interviews.

Survey Sample And Questionnaire Design (Quantitative)

Pakistan is an under developing country but we have a lot to restaurant chins here but all the restaurant are not licensed by PFA (Pakistan food authority) but this research choose only 20 restaurants that is licensed by PFA and design the questionnaire for those restaurants in order to collect quantitative data.

Population and sample size

All the restaurants and consumer in Lahore is the population, from all of these twenty restaurants and hundred consumer is selected as a sample.

Sampling techniques

Researcher use the data that is gathered by snowball sampling technique this technique does not depend on probability that relies on facts only. i.e. in this technique a researcher or interview host call a person and collect data and that person provide the number of three further contacts and that contacts we select for interview and those three provide further nine and this chain is extended according to the sample size or according data we need.

Statistical Analysis

In the research study data will be analyzed using SPSS and MS excel.

In the final step of research, we find the result why food waste is increase day by day and how to fulfill the hunger of nation. And what will be the best preservation and storage methods.

In the era of nineties(1900’s) the ratio of food waste is very low due a small population but with the passage of time the waste is increase. If we talk about other countries they are working on it and making new strategies in order to reduce food waste specifically japan.

A Gantt chart is a type of bar chart that illustrates a project schedule, named after its inventor, Henry Gantt, who designed such a chart around the years 1910–1915. Modern Gantt charts also show the dependency relationships between activities and current schedule status.

  • Reset.org web Global Food Waste and its Environmental Impact https://en.reset.org/knowledge/global-food-waste-and-its-environmental-impact-09122018
  • Lancet. 2013. 2013 Aug 3;382(9890):396]. Lancet. 2013;382(9890):427‐451. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(13)60937-X https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23746772/
  • April 2015, during a discussion on class disparity, malnutrition and hunger, university students Huzaifa Ahmed, Musa Amir and Qasim Javed came up with a simple idea. https://images.dawn.com/news/1176618
  • Papargyropoulou E, Lozano R, Steinberger J, Wright N, Ujang Zb, The food waste hierarchy as a framework for the management of food surplus and food waste, Journal of Cleaner Production (2014), doi: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2014.04.020. http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/79194/1/accepted%20manuscript.pdf http://refeedamerica.com/
  • No. 29 Communications is a New York City-based media relations firm that works with companies, people, and organizations that challenge the status quo and create true impact. Team member included Melody Serafino https://www.refed.com/downloads/ReFED_Report_2016.pdf
  • Published: 26 May 2015; MAPP—Centre for Research on Customer Relations in the Food Sector, Aarhus University, Bartholinsalle 10, 8000 Aarhus, Denmark https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/7/6/6457/pdf
  • https://robinhoodarmy.com/
  • https://salmansufifoundation.org/
  • http://rizqfoundation.com/
  • https://bqrnd.com/estimation-of-food-wastage-in-capital-city-of-pakistan/
  • http://www.science‐gate.com/IJAAS.html
  • Institute of Environment and Development (LESTARI), National University of Malaysia (UKM), Bangi 43600, Selangor D.E, Malaysia  Published: 8 November 2017 ; Department of Public Administration, Yonsei University, 1599-1885 50 Yonsei-ro Seodaemun-gu, Seoul 03722, Korea https://www.samaa.tv/opinion/2017/12/food-waste-new-war-fight/

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Home — Essay Samples — Environment — Environment Problems — Food Waste

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Food “waste” refers to food that is fit for consumption but consciously discarded at the retail or consumption phases.

The causes of food waste are numerous and occur throughout the food system, during production, processing, distribution, retail and food service sales, and consumption.

Food loss and waste is a major part of the impact of agriculture on climate change (it amounts to 3.3 billion tons of CO2e emissions annually) and other environmental issues, such as land use, water use and loss of biodiversity.

Prevention of food waste, reuse, animal feed, and recycling of nutrients.

One third of all food produced is lost or wasted – around 1.3 billion tonnes of food. Up to 10% of global greenhouse gases comes from food that is produced, but not eaten. Wasting food is worse than total emissions from flying (1.9%), plastic production (3.8%) and oil extraction (3.8%). Almost half of all fruit and vegetables produced are wasted.

Relevant topics

  • Global Warming
  • Climate Change
  • Invasive Species
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food management essay

Climate Change and Food Waste Management Essay

The global environment has been endangered due to ongoing climate change (CC). A recent summit gathering multiple world leaders indicates that the planet is in distress because of CC (Stallard). CC is a complex issue, but it can be addressed in several ways, and one of them is through food waste (FW) management. Food is an essential element for the survival of any human being, but people’s relationships with their meals have generated an intricate concern. In the last fifty years, food demand has more than doubled worldwide, yet about 30%-50% of produced edibles are thrown away annually across the planet (Mariam et al. 1; Skaf et al. 1).

FW raises substantial social, economic, and ethical concerns but also significantly affects the environment by mitigating CC (Mariam et al. 1; Skaf et al. 2). Climate change is an international challenge that is reinforced by FW, indicating that FW management can help in maintaining the further worsening of the environment.

A substantial number of studies have been conducted suggesting a solution to FW. For instance, some propose grassroots initiatives, others recommend involving companies that operate in the hospitality industry, catering, and retail, while governments lead FW projects and policies (Mariam et al. 1). Accordingly, a question arises concerning which approach to FW management can do the most to handle CC. The environment’s decline associated with CC has anthropogenic causes but affects the whole planet, so both different organizations and the general public should join forces to improve the situation. Climate change can be controlled through several food waste methods, yet one practice is likely to be more efficient due to allowing different people and institutions to participate.

Works Cited

Mariam, Nikravech, et al. “Limiting Food Waste via Grassroots Initiatives as a Potential for Climate Change Mitigation: A Systematic Review.” Environmental Research Letters , vol. 15, no. 12, 2020, pp. 1-24.

Skaf, Ludmila, et al. “Unfolding Hidden Environmental Impacts of Food Waste: An Assessment for Fifteen Countries of the World.” Journal of Cleaner Production , vol. 310, 2021, pp. 1-9.

Stallard, Esme. “ COP27: ‘Climate Chaos’ Warning as UN Summit Begins .” BBC . 2022. Web.

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Exploring the link among food loss, waste and food security: what the research should focus on?

  • Fabio G. Santeramo   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9450-4618 1  

Agriculture & Food Security volume  10 , Article number:  26 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

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Food loss and food waste are highly debated topics and likely to stay in the research agendas for the next decades. Their relevance is not only important for developing economies, but also for developed economies, especially due to the impact that loss and waste have on the status of food security. In the present editorial, I comment on how research agendas should be shaped in order to focus on emerging issues, and put emphasis on the topics closely connected to the emerging literature on the circular economy.

During the last decades the growth of the agri-food sector has been parallel to several other dynamics, such as countries’ specialization, trade openness, and socio-economic inequalities. These changes have not eliminated the threats for food insecurity, a complex and multi-faceted phenomenon [ 15 ]. Indeed, they have added further challenges on the global agenda: the share of food-insecure people is still high, with an estimate (before the pandemic) of 680 million people being food insecure [ 6 ] that are expected to increase after the pandemic.

Among the major threats that the global changes are imposing on food security, it is important to mention the increase in the amount of food lost and wasted. Wasting food is a relevant issue for (at least) two reasons: it emphasizes the need for economic efficiency, the necessity to produce foods for those who need it without losing (significant) shares of produced goods due to spoilage of inefficiencies in logistic; it calls for a reflection on the ethical concerns that the current production system imposes on our society.

The terms “food loss” and “food waste” are frequently used as synonymous, while they refer to different aspects of the same problem as suggested in Schuster and Torero [ 23 ]. Food loss, both production and post-harvest losses, refers to the accidental reduction in the quantity and quality of food before consumption. Potential food losses are also associated with food lost, due to pests and diseases, limited harvesting techniques, price volatility, or food not produced, due to the lack of agricultural inputs [ 19 , 20 , 21 ]. Differently, food waste refers to the intentional discard of food suitable for the human consumption.

To put all these issues in one term, food waste and food loss are detrimental for the status of food security, and, by implying sustained prices [ 17 ], impact on the compositions of diets [ 3 ], that are sensitive to income and price changes [ 18 , 24 ]. While the global demand for food grows, millions of people suffer from undernourishment worldwide [ 1 ]. About 1.3 billion tons of edible foodstuffs (one-third of the global food production) are lost or wasted along the food supply chain [ 9 ].

Food loss and waste may occur during production (e.g., pre-harvest, harvest, breeding), post-production procedures (e.g., handling, storage, transport), processing (e.g., canning, packaging, transformation), distribution (e.g., retail, transport), and consumption (e.g., preparation, table) [ 23 ]. The inefficient use of resources within the agri-food systems impacts on the three dimensions of sustainability: from the environmental perspective, food loss and waste contribute to natural resource depletion and environmental pollution; at the economic level, the impacts of food waste are substantial especially at the consumption and retail stages; from the social point of view, food loss and waste, by reducing food access and availability may undermine food security [ 4 , 10 ].

The reduction of food loss and waste along the supply chain, from production to consumption, is essential to improve food security while reducing pressure on natural resources [ 9 ], as stated for the Sustainable Development Goals envisaged by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development [ 25 ]. The global food losses and waste are constantly monitored Footnote 1 on the basis of the Food Loss Index (FLI) and the Food Waste Index (FWI). While the FWI comprising the retail and consumption levels is still under development, the FLI considers food losses occurring from production up to the retail level.

What the literature has already emphasized and what needs to be further investigated

The first author that has investigated the connections between food loss and food security is likely to have been Nyambo [ 12 ], with the important claim farmers in Kenya, by reducing food losses (due to post‐harvest grain handling technology) are capable of enhancing food security.

After this pioneering study, the linkages between food loss and waste and food security have remained under-debated for a couple of decades. At the beginning of the new millennium Marsh et al. [ 11 ] focused on the impact that food losses along the global food supply chains have on food security and concluded that food losses are consistent for the vast majority of traded agricultural commodities. These studies have legitimated the strand of literature devoted to exploring how food losses increase food insecurity in developing countries, the most dependent on trade and in need of innovations.

More recently, Eikenberry and Smith [ 5 ] pointed out that food recovery and donation programmes may help reducing the amount of wasted food, and thus contribute to improve the status of food insecurity in most developed countries.

Containing losses and waste would help cutting the use of resources (i.e. water, energy) used for food production, with benefits for the environment and for the status of food security. In order to reduce food loss and food waste, governments are adopting legislative and non-legislative initiatives and consumer awareness campaigns [ 23 ] to favour the transition towards sustainable agri-food systems and supply chains that ensure food security in a green and circular economy perspective. For instance, countries in the European Union are committed to halve per capita food waste at the retail and consumer level and reduce food losses along the food production and supply chains by 2030, to meet the Sustainable Development Goals. To this end, since 2015, the European Commission took actions to prevent food losses and waste under the Circular Economy Action Plan, based on three major principles: reduce, reuse, and recycle (e.g., [ 14 ]).

Efficient containment policies along the entire agri-food supply chains may contribute to save water and energy and to implement an integrated resource use in a green economy [ 2 ]. Several topics are promising and should be explored more and more in order to follow new trends observed in the food industry [ 19 , 20 ]: the development of improved food harvest, storage, processing, transport and retailing processes, the adoption of new technologies; the organization of farmers in cooperatives or professional associations; the promotion of awareness campaigns for retails and consumers; the development of communication strategies among all participants in food supply chains; the promotion of reuse and recycle strategies in a circular and green economy perspective. The recognition of sectoral interconnections may help to improve cross-sectoral collaborations to achieve long-term economic, environmental, and social goals [ 22 ].

Another issue that should be on the research agenda is the relationships linking water and energy use to the status of food security. The global agri-food systems consume large shares of water and energy for food production and supply chains. Agriculture accounts for 72% of all water withdrawals [ 26 ] and food production and supply chains are responsible of about 30% of total global energy consumption [ 6 , 7 ]. In addition, in the global energy mix, the fossil fuel production (highly water-intensive) is still dominant with respect to renewable energy sources (less water-intensive).

Understanding the water–energy–food security nexus is crucial to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals: the domains “water”, “energy”, “food” are strictly interrelated and the achievement of social, economic and environmental goals in a perspective of sustainable development depends on an efficient management of these resources [ 8 ]. Global projections indicate that—due to a growing population, a rapid economic development and the urbanization, the changes in diets and the climate change [ 8 ]—the demand for water is expected to increase by 55% by 2050 [ 13 ], the energy consumption is expected to grow by up to 50% by 2035, and demand for food is expected to increase by 50% to feed the more than 9 billion people projected by 2050 [ 6 ]. Focusing on the nexus between water, energy, and food would help facing the global challenges that the globe.

To sum up, it is advisable to wisely orient the future research on understanding the interrelations between food loss and waste and food security. To this aim, scenario analyses would be useful to explore strategic decisions (e.g., policy, investment, technical intervention) planned or adopted to contain food loss and waste. In order to analyse the food loss/waste-food security nexus and assess the implications of containment policies, reliable, relevant and timely data is needed. Evidence-based analyses of the implications of food loss and waste on food security, supported by high-quality and available data, would provide key information to policymakers aimed at promoting environmentally, economically, and socially sustainable development.

Availability of data and materials

Not applicable.

For instance, the FAO provides an in-depth look at what food is being lost and wasted, and where. The FAO’s Food Loss and Waste database is a large collection of data on both food loss and food waste containing information and measures of food loss and waste across food products, stages of the value chain, and geographical areas.

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Agriculture & Food Security

ISSN: 2048-7010

food management essay

Food Waste Management Essay

“Have you ever thrown away food and then afterwards feel guilty of where it could have gone? We as a group have decided to focus on food waste for the reason of the massive amount of food that gets wasted each year. More than 70 billion pounds of food gets thrown away every year and if we don’t change this it can lead to world hunger.

Food waste has developed over the whole existence of humans and has only been getting worse. This issue is becoming worse over the years because of oversized proportions and ignorance. This keep getting worse if we don’t do anything to stop it the amount of food that is being wasted to unreasonably high and there are simple solutions to solve this problem. For example save uneaten food for later or just plainly getting a smaller proportion. One in six Americans are food insecure, which will keep increasing if we don’t put a stop to this food waste.

For many people on the planet, food is a given. But for the staggering more than 820 million people who are hungry, food is not a guarantee. 1.6 billion tons of food worth around $1.2 trillion are lost or wasted every year, the study found, and the problem is only getting worse. If we don’t do something to stop this than the problem will just keep escalating. Food waste is set to increase by 33% in the next ten years. Recents studies show that 92% restaurants in america serve oversized food proportions. This is one of many examples of food waste that occurs every day. One solution to this is to get and serve smaller proportions.

Californians throw away nearly 6 million tons of food each year, this represents about 18 percent of all the material that goes to landfills. Imagine if that food wasn’t thrown away how many people that could have feed. “This represents about 18 percent of all the material that goes to landfills. According to CalRecycle, “In order for California to reach its goal of 75% percent source reduction, recycling and composting, food waste must be addressed.” Food waste has indeed become an issue of great public concern. Food waste is the intentional discarding of edible items, mainly by retailers and consumers and mainly occurs in developed regions.

Another way to put this is that people die because they don’t have food and this could easily be prevented if people get smaller proportions. According to BCG estimated, “By 2030, food waste will increase to 2.1 billion tons, worth around $1.5 trillion.” This shows that food waste is a major problem and other than food being wasted, money is also being wasted. Every food insecure person in the world could be fed on less than a quarter of the food that is wasted in the US and Europe. Just think about all of the 1 billion food insecure people next time you buy an oversized proportion of food.

California alone throw away 5.6 million tons of food every year which is 18% of the states food waste. Refrigerators in the U.S have grown in size by 15% due to since the 1970 due to people buying larger portions of food. According to Food Waste FAQs when a person goes grocery shopping on average they waste about 30 to 40 percent of the food they buy. People sometimes buy unnecessary food products that they don’t end up using it or they forget about which makes it get spoiled or they assume its gone bad so they throw it away. A new study shows that yearly in the U.S restaurants lose 2 billion dollars in profit due to food waste.

Restaurants are a major factor to the causes of food waste, they waste 22 to 33 billion pounds of food every year. It is around 25% of the food we waste each year, which cost around 56 billion dollars. Since the 1970 the average food plate served by restaurants has increased by 138% making more than double the size. In the 197o burgers only weighed 5.9 oz now they weigh 7.3 oz making it almost an increase by 2 ounces, the average weight of french fries in the w1977 was 2.1 oz now they weigh 3.3 oz. This shows the mass of food has increased over the years, which only increases the food waste.

People buy way too much food and don’t eat half of it, nor do they plan out the amount of food their going to use to cook or to eat. Farmers and food manufactures over produce food for us to buy in the time. Storage is also a huge problem for manufactures they over produce food and don’t know where to store a percent of it. Farmers sometimes plant crops to early as a response to lack of food and money. Fresh produce such as meat and fish sometimes spoiled do the hot climate.

One experience I’ve had dealt with in relationship to food waste is within my Culinary art class. I see a lot of leftovers, rot ingredients, and good food gets thrown away every day. In a recent study led by EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) it talks about how much MSW (municipal solid waste) is thrown away each year. It is estimated that 39.7 million tons of food gets thrown away each year. Another solution to decrease the amount of food waste each year is by composting.

Solutions, solutions to our problems are not that hard they are pretty simple actually. One of the simplest ways to minimize food waste is by checking the labels of the food you buy to make sure you can eat them on time before they rot. In the article “ Would you eat food made with ‘thrash?’ by Emily Matchar It talk about making food from trash. It uses the example of making ketchup out of old tomatoes. It states “The problem of food waste has been getting more attention in recent years. Globally, up to one-third of all food is spoiled or lost before it can be eaten.” this is here to show that food waste is still a common problem a lot of people don’t notice.

Food waste is a problem which has a negative effect on both humans and the environment. Food waste that decomposes in a landfill produces methane, methane is a gas that is 28 times more harmful to the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. Methane absorbs the sun’s heat causing an increase in the temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere, this increase in temperature contributes to Global Warming causing more problems. Food Waste also affects humans because food wasted is money wasted. Statistics show the average American family wastes ? the food they purchase, that means they are wasting money on food they don’t need. Food waste also accounts for the great amount of water wasted all around the world. Agriculture uses 70% of the water throughout the world, so any produce that gets thrown away is water being wasted. Water is crucial for our survival so we want to make sure it doesn’t go to waste.

Food waste has many indirect influences that cause greater problems. One of these problems is World Hunger, food waste is the root to all hunger worldwide. Food is being wasted at all stages of production. Food waste starts at harvest due to lack of resources and continues till the food reaches your plate and you throw it away. Approximately ? of the world’s food is being wasted every year, that’s enough to feed 2 billion people. Food waste also causes Global Warming, when we produce food we release greenhouse gases which heat up our atmosphere. Therefore if reduce the amount of food wasted we can decrease the greenhouse emissions produced by food production. However the World’s population is constantly increasing which means that food production must increase as well, an increase in food production would cause even more global warming. Therefore reducing food waste is beneficial to our atmosphere and humans. Just by reducing food waste you can help reduce World Hunger and Global Warming.

In conclusion, food waste is a problem which occurs worldwide and affects both humans and our environment in a negative way. Food waste indirectly creates greater problems such as Global Warming and World Hunger. Therefore reducing our food waste would be beneficial to both humans and our environment. Food waste is hurting our environment and you can help, if everyone minimizes the amount of food they waste the world would be a much better place. We can reduce World Hunger and Global warming if we just waste less food. Earth would be healthier and more people would be able to eat. So all in all, hopefully this essay helped you realise the negative impacts food waste has on our earth and how you can help.

Cesar Barajas

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  • https://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-have-food-portions-increased-2016-4#the-perfect-salty-snack-3
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  • https://www.ecowatch.com/food-waste-increase-2597861750.html
  • https://www.calrecycle.ca.gov/organics/food

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Hospitality Management: Food and Beverage Management

Food and beverage management, lodging management, differences and similarities, recommendations.

A person is preparing for their last high school exam and looking forward to a career in hospitality management, which is currently one of the best in the field since it provides with prosperous opportunities. The one who gets a hospitality management degree is given the necessary skills for the open hospitality field. The two prominent management careers in this sphere are food, beverage, and lodging management.

The food and beverage managers work in catering companies, restaurants, hotels, and anywhere else food is served throughout the country. According to the US labor department, the primary duty of the food and beverage manager is to oversee all restaurants operations and on-property food services (Davis et al., 2018). It includes ordering food and supplies, human resources, financial tracking, customer service, and inventory. The manager’s primary goal is training the emloyees in order to provide top-quality services.

Lodging management is a prosperous career opportunity for graduates as well. The industry offers hotels, resorts, hotels and other types of accommodation provided to travelers. This area of management assumes that managers are responsible for the day-to-day operations of the property. The operations will include customer relations, budget, employee relations, facilitating a smooth process, and property sales. The manager will also make sure that all rooms are always kept neat and ready for new guests (Jain & Bukhari, 2020). Security of guests with their personal belongings is the manager’s responsibility by ensuring all security personnel are alert.

The general management (GM) positions will have some similarities and differences. The first similarity is that every manager should rise very early to prepare for the day. Additionally, both restaurant and hotel GMs are in charge of conducting meetings or briefings for their emloyees to set the goals and discuss the working process. Ultimately, both are responsible for controlling the high-quaity service provision and helping customers solve their problems.

The restaurant manager must take his time to first connect with his staff before checking on deliveries making sure that all the lists of prepare filled out, and they can make any necessary adjustments. They are supposed to fill the seating charts, check for all reservations, and go through any details specified on service items of the day’s menu. They order ingridients and edit the menus in order to meet clients’ needs.

On the other hand, the general manager in a hotel has to check-in with clerks and other managers. They walk through the lobby while most guests are still in their rooms, ensuring that it is ready for the day when guests come down. GMs will personally make sure magazines are available and can straighten and turn on all TVs to the proper channels. On various days, they conduct an early meeting with multiple managers from different departments. The heads of these departments can also conduct discussions with their employees to ensure that collaboration is effective. The General Manager will always be present at most of these meetings with all the departments. The major difference is that the hotel manager, unlike the food and beverage one, should check every department: laundry, kitchen, houskeepers, and other wokers.

Forecasting the next ten years, it is evident that the industries expand their influence in the field. Managers are the core drivers for changes since they make sure each employee is given equal opportunities for development and promotion. They all ensure that their quests get quality services. It is an excellent experience for the manager to interact in a friendly manner with both staff and guests. A significant part of the job is communication. Putting on a warm smile and giving encouraging words will put everyone in a positive mood. By providing high-quality sevices, the industries will boost both their performance and profit, attracting more young people to work in the field of management.

The first recommendation to the human resource management is to recruit their employees in a transparent and fair practice. Recruits should first be qualified and have enough experience for the smooth running of the company management. All these employees should also have good welfare, and they should have a good salary for their personal development. An exemplary structure of rules and regulations should be laid down to govern all workers fairly and professionally.

It is also recommended that the human resource manager is responsible for all duties that revolve around all employees. The responsibilities are given to employees, and the human resource manager should make sure that all those duties are done well and on time (Khatter et al., 2019). What is more, managers should award and promote best performing employees. The worker who works best should be gifted and give others the morale to get gifts and promotions. It will make a good competition among the workers, which, in turn, improves the management of the industry.

In conclusion, hospitality management is one of the most growing industries globally, creating more job opportunities. In higher learning institutions, various careers are provided to train learners’ required skills to develop the industry. Managers are also sending their employees to seminars for the betterment of the company. They ensure responsibilities are well managed and that guests get quality services, and they will come back in the future, bringing even more friends.

Davis, B., Lockwood, A., Alcott, P., & Pantelidis, I. S. (2018). Food and beverage management . Routledge, 15-17.

Jain, M. P., & Bukhari, S. A. (2020). Lodging management competencies; Industry, educators, and students perspective . International Journal of Management (IJM) , 11 (12), 2864-2874. Web.

Khatter, A., McGrath, M., Pyke, J., White, L., & Lockstone-Binney, L. (2019). Analysis of hotels’ environmentally sustainable policies and practices: Sustainability and corporate social responsibility in hospitality and tourism. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 21-26. Web.

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Essay on Food Wastage for Students and Children in 1100 Words

Essay on Food Wastage for Students and Children in 1100 Words

In this article, we have published and Essay on Food Wastage for Students and Children in 1100 Words. It includes details about food wastage in India and Worldwide where it happens, effects, its solution with opinion.

So, lets start this persuasive essay on food wastage…

Table of Contents

Introduction (Essay on Food Wastage – 1100 Words)

In Indian culture, food has the status of respect, which is the reason it is viewed as a transgression to surrender or insolence food erroneously. However, in the visually impaired race of innovation, we have overlooked this ceremony of our own.

This is the reason that a vast amount of food is being squandered regularly. This is more prevalent in case of inns and eateries in occasions like weddings. 

Wastage of Food in India and Worldwide

As per a report by the World Food Organization, each seventh individual rests hungry. We can halt waste if, at that point, many individuals can be taken care.

India is positioned 67 in the World Hunger Index. The nation produces 251 million tons of food grains each year, yet every fourth Indian sleep hungry. 

According to some researches and findings by the report of the World Food Organization, consistently, food worth rupees fifty thousand crores go into the nation which is 40% of the nation’s creation.

This wastage has its regular assets on our nation. Our nation is battling with water shortage. However, 230 cusecs of water are squandered in creating this waste of food, which can extinguish the thirst of 100 million individuals. 

Wastage of food in Parties & Functions 

We are, mostly, mindful of the wastage of food occurring in our weddings, or celebrations. On these events, a ton of food goes into the trash.

Ordinarily, the scent and spoil emerging from food tossed around the houses make issues for those living there. We continue perusing the updates on creature passings because of decaying food. 

The Indian government is likewise stressed over the food squander at weddings. In 2011, the Food Ministry said it was thinking about constraining the number of visitors served at weddings as the number of dishes served.

The Marriage Ceremony (Restriction of Exhibition and Useful Spending) Act, 2006, has additionally been instituted in such a manner. Anyway, this standard doesn’t make a difference carefully. 

Effect of Food Wastage 

In the present time, food squander presents many difficulties. We can see the impact of food wastage all over the place – 

Wastage of food has a negative effect on water, land, and atmosphere just as biodiversity. Losing food squander is omnipresent.

This causes lost more than $750 billion to the worldwide economy, which is comparable to the GDP of Switzerland. Wastage of food is answerable for the ailing health of a huge number of offspring of the world. 

Around 28 percent of the world’s property, with a zone of 1.4 billion hectares, is utilized to deliver food grains. 

Right approach to keep food & its proper use 

They squander the absence of food because of the non-upkeep of products of the soil. On the off chance that this transpires, at that point you should prepare yourself for it. 

Save legitimate courses of action for keeping vegetables and organic products at home. Use the correct utensils and stick to keep the rest of the food. Continue checking the grains that are ruined by dampness routinely. Dry them in the sun at the correct time.  

Ways to avoid food wastage (Solutions)

There is a ton that ladies can do to forestall food wastage. Particularly in kids, we must habituate it to serve in the plate as much as it is ravenous. Administering food to one another can likewise forestall wastage of food to an enormous degree. 

1. Cook as much food as you need 

There ought to be acceptable coordination in the family for the amount to cook. The food is squandered. We recollected when we were kids when our mom used to cook, she would ask everybody before that. 

2. Check what’s in your capacity 

Go to your washroom and cooler and see what nourishments you as of now have. It very well may be of two sorts. First there is nothing that will turn sour.

If you realize something will turn sour soon. During that point, think about what is for supper? Also, plan and use it.

3. You should know when your food will ruin 

A few things have lapse dates, yet it is additionally critical to know how nourishments that have not been imprinted on a time will ruin them. Discover to what extent you can keep the extra food.

Housewives have a decent encounter with which food will be awful. On the off chance that you eat something like semolina for quite a while, at that point, it turns into a worm. 

4. Eat your extras 

There are a few people who have no issue eating extra food, and afterward, there are a few people who are not careless about it. I am not saying that you need to cherish the extras yet if you have made extra, at that point, eat them later. 

5. Use each piece 

Using each bit of item is presumably more conceivable in certain nourishments than others. For instance, I can’t consider what you would do with spouses of corn if you are eating old-fashioned corn. However, I am sure there is something out there that on the off chance that you are imaginative you ought to get it. 

6. Give what you need 

The food is more, and you feel that you can’t use it, kindly do it by offering it to the penniless. What many individuals do, they don’t provide food to anybody when they are spared, however pause.

Also, later they put it in the trash. On the off chance that you feed the extras to any destitute, this is likewise a gift 

7. Use squander sagaciously 

For instance, in certain nations like Japan, squander is ordered and used unexpectedly. In this way, we cut food squander into small pieces in industrial facilities and either deteriorated into plant food or covered in landfills to create methane gas, the wellspring of fuel. 

8. Quickly evacuate terrible vegetables and leaves: 

Do you notice anything after the vegetables are brought home or later when you take them out to cook, each time you see a yellowish or dim leaf, haul it out quickly and evacuate it?

Figuring out stacks of some-disturbing and some-new herbs is unpleasant; immediate expulsion of crooks decreases the probability of unfriendly consequences for other people.

It is very shocking able to know that this much quantity of food is wasted in our country. This is too much carelessness and a lack of feeling of the value of food. We all citizens should take a pledge to stop wasting food.

This will be possible through the better determination and cooperation of each other in society. NGOs also should evolve in this campaign. I hope you liked this informative essay on food wastage.

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Importance of Food Service Management

According to the USDA , food service facilities like diners, coffee shops, and family restaurants grossed over $731 billion in 2014. The food service industry is a vital part of the American economy. These businesses rely on food service managers (FSMs) to control costs, keep customers happy, and ensure smooth operations on a daily basis. But what does a food service manager really do? And why are they so important to restaurant operations?

The Roles of a Food Service Manager

FSMs are the center of activity in any food service setting. Their daily tasks involve organizing resources, supporting health and safety compliance, and administrative duties. In an average day, an FSM might:

  • Train employees on equipment use and procedures.
  • Schedule employee shifts and assign duties for the fullest coverage with the smallest impact on the bottom line.
  • Submit orders for ingredients, paper goods, and other supplies.
  • Monitor employee performance to ensure quality standards.
  • Assist customers with issues or complaints.
  • Reconcile daily cash deposits.
  • Record payroll data.
  • Inspect storage, preparation, and customer areas for cleanliness and safety.

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The duties of FSMs vary in each restaurant. Larger dining rooms may have several managers working together, with each one responsible for only one part of the daily operations. An FSM may be responsible for interviewing and hiring employees.

Higher-end facilities may have an executive chef that controls the food-related aspects of the business. In that situation, the FSM would concentrate on front-of-the-house issues like coordinating wait staff and the diner’s experience. No matter how their official job description may read, FSMs are essential to the proper functioning of any commercial eatery.

The Importance of Food Service Management

FSMs use their organizational and interpersonal skills to keep customer satisfaction high while operating costs stay low. It’s estimated that the average restaurant only lasts about five years. While many factors influence the success or failure of a business, good management practices reduce the likelihood of failure for new diners in many ways.

  • Controlling food costs is crucial to a prosperous eatery. FSMs help keep businesses profitable by educating employees on serving and preparation standards, keeping a careful inventory of stocks, and sourcing different suppliers for the most cost-effective ingredients.
  • Customer opinion can make or break a restaurant, no matter how long it has been in operation. When a problem occurs, the FSM must do damage control to reduce any negative impact on the business. A successful FSM needs to know customer relation techniques that turn unhappy diners into repeat patrons.
  • Restaurants rely on wait staff, bussers, cooks, and cleaners to run smoothly. More than just schedules and paychecks, FSMs are responsible for keeping all staff members motivated and working to their potential.

An FSM’s real job is to make sure everyone is happy. They provide employees with the tools they need to give the customer their best possible experience. When employees are satisfied they ensure customers are satisfied, and business thrives.

A Faster Path for FSMs

Many FSMs start from the bottom. They spend years honing their skills and proving their ability to run a restaurant. For those who want a faster start, a degree program is the quickest route to achieving your goals. An accredited hospitality training program will show you how to use your natural abilities to guide any eating establishment to succeed. In addition you could learn administrative, leadership, and management procedures that will put you far ahead of the competition.

Importance of Food Service Management

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Reimagining Design with Nature: ecological urbanism in Moscow

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  • Published: 10 September 2019
  • Volume 1 , pages 233–247, ( 2019 )

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food management essay

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The twenty-first century is the era when populations of cities will exceed rural communities for the first time in human history. The population growth of cities in many countries, including those in transition from planned to market economies, is putting considerable strain on ecological and natural resources. This paper examines four central issues: (a) the challenges and opportunities presented through working in jurisdictions where there are no official or established methods in place to guide regional, ecological and landscape planning and design; (b) the experience of the author’s practice—Gillespies LLP—in addressing these challenges using techniques and methods inspired by McHarg in Design with Nature in the Russian Federation in the first decade of the twenty-first century; (c) the augmentation of methods derived from Design with Nature in reference to innovations in technology since its publication and the contribution that the art of landscape painters can make to landscape analysis and interpretation; and (d) the application of this experience to the international competition and colloquium for the expansion of Moscow. The text concludes with a comment on how the application of this learning and methodological development to landscape and ecological planning and design was judged to be a central tenant of the winning design. Finally, a concluding section reflects on lessons learned and conclusions drawn.

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A History of Moscow in 13 Dishes

Jun 06 2018.

War, hunger, and some of the world’s great doomed social experiments all changed the way that Moscow eats.

Moscow, the European metropolis on Asia’s western flank, has always been a canvas for competing cultures. Its cuisine is no different. The ancient baselines of winter grains, root vegetables, and cabbage acquired scaffolding from both directions: eastern horsemen brought meat on sticks, western craftsmen brought pastries, and courtly French chefs came and drowned it all in cream.

History has a place on the plate here, as well: war, hunger, and some of the world’s great doomed social experiments from Serfdom to Communism to Bandit Capitalism all changed the way that Moscow eats. So in the spirit of all of those grand failures, we—a Russian chef and an American writer—will attempt here to reduce the towering history of this unknowable city to 13 dishes, with some Imperial past but a special emphasis on the more recent decades of culinary paroxysms as Moscow emerged from its Soviet slumber.

Olivier Salad

food management essay

To visualize the long marriage between French and Russian cuisines, picture Peter the Great, on a diplomatic sojourn to Paris in 1717, a “ stranger to etiquette ”, meeting the 7-year-old boy-king Louis XV and lifting him in the air out of sheer elán. These things were simply not done, and yet, there they were. Peter’s joyful (and often envious) fascination with all things French took hold, among other places, in the kitchen. He brought French chefs back to his palaces, and then the lesser nobility followed suit, and when the first restaurants emerged in Moscow, they also spoke French. The Hermitage Restaurant, which was open from 1864 until history intervened in 1917, had a Francophone Belgian named Lucien Olivier as a chef, and he made a salad that was a perfectly unrestrained combination of French flavors and Russian ingredients: grouse! Veal tongue! Proto-mayonnaise! The ingredients now tend toward the pedestrian—boiled beef, dill pickles, various vegetables all bound with mayonnaise—and it has become a staple of Russian cuisine, especially on New Year’s. And yes, if you’ve ever seen the lonely Ensalada Rusa wilting behind the sneezeguard of a Spanish tapas bar, that is supposed to be a successor to the Olivier. But in Moscow, you should eat Matryoshka ’s version, which is not the original recipe but has some of that imperial richness: crayfish, quail, sturgeon caviar, and remoulade, all under a translucent aspic skirt, for 990₽ ($16).

There’s a type of expression around bottling things—bottled lightning, summer in a jar, etc.—that feels very apt here. What exactly is bottled with vareniye (jam)? A lot more than just fruit. These jams, which tend to be thinner than western varieties—with whole berries or fruit chunks in syrup—are bottled with a lot of Russian identity. There’s the Russian love of countryside. Deep dacha culture of summer cottages and personal orchards. Traditional naturopathy (raspberry vareniye taken with tea will fight fever). And above all, friendship is bottled here— vareniye made from the overabundance of fruit at one’s dacha is the most typical Russian gift, real sharing from real nature, even in the often-cynical heart of Europe’s largest megacity. Visitors who are short on lifelong friendships in Moscow can pick some up fine vareniye at any Lavka Lavka shop (we recommend the delicate young pine cone jam) or, curiously enough, at many Armenian stores.

Borodinsky Bread

food management essay

The clinical-sounding title of Lev Auerman’s 1935 classic Tekhnologiya Khlebopecheniya ( Bread Baking Technology) doesn’t promise scintillation. But Auerman’s recipe for rye bread changed Russian bread forever. An older legend had it that the bread was baked dark for mourning by a woman widowed in the battle of Borodino in 1812, but the real birth of the bread came from Auerman’s recipes. A modification on sweet, malted Baltic breads, Auerman’s Borodinsky bread was 100% rye and used caraway or anise. The recipe has evolved a bit—today it is 80% rye and 20% wheat high extraction flour and leans more on coriander than caraway. But its flavor profile (sweet, chewy) as well as its characteristic L7 mold —a deep brick of bread—has made it easily identifiable as the traditional, ubiquitous, every-occasion bread of Moscow. You can buy it everywhere, but the Azbuka Vkusa high-end markets have a reliably good sliced version.

Buckwheat Grechka

Look closely at those Russians who have followed their money to live in London, or are vacationing in Cyprus or Antalya. See the slight melancholy that not even cappuccinos or sunshine can erase. It’s not because Russians are gloomy by nature; it’s probably because there is no real grechka outside of Russia and Ukraine, and that is devastating. Buckwheat grain and groats— grechka (or grecha in Saint Petersburg)—are deep in the culture. It’s a wartime memory: May 9 Victory Day celebrations feature military kitchens serving buckwheat like they did at the front. It’s a little slice of Russian history that lies somewhere between oatmeal and couscous. In Moscow, eat it at Dr. Zhivago with milk (180₽/US$2.90) or mushrooms (590₽/US$9.50), and rejoice.

Mimoza Salad

food management essay

This fantastically expressive egg-and-canned-fish salad is a testament to Soviet ingenuity—it’s the ultimate puzzle to make a drastically limited food chain sparkle—and the universal human thrill of layering foods. The geological creation starts with a base layer of fish, then layers of grated cooked potato, mayonnaise, shredded cheese, grated carrots, sweet onion, diced egg whites and then capped with a brilliant yellow crumble of boiled egg yolk. It sits there on the plate, dazzling like the flowering mimosa tree it is named after. The taste? Well, it’s comfort food. Pick some up to go at any Karavaev Brothers location —the excellent deli chain sells it for 650₽ (US$10.40) a kilo.

It seems odd, almost impossible, to imagine a time in Russia before shashlik. It’s meat on a stick, something that all humans should have had on the menu since at least the time of Prometheus. But shashlik as we know it know—cubes of marinated meat cooked with vegetables over a mangal grill—didn’t really take off in Russia until the early 1900s. And due to a lack of suitable meat in much of the Soviet era (there were no meat cattle herds, only dairy), we’re starting the clock on shashlik in the late Soviet period. Despite its relatively recent (re)appearance, it is now the ubiquitous grill phenomenon of Russia, a welcome ritual of summer.

food management essay

Much of Russian cuisine has borrowed heavily from Central Asia and further east over the millennia ( pelmeni anyone?), but plov is a striking example of an entire eastern dish making its way directly into Russian households. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and upheaval in many Central Asian Soviet Republics, mass economic migration to Moscow took off in the late 80s and early 90s. Central Asians today are the lifeblood of the Moscow labor force (part of up to 10-12 million Central Asian migrants living in Russia), and plov—rice steamed in stock with meat and vegetables—has jumped from the migrant communities to the homes of Muscovites everywhere. It has developed an unfortunate reputation for being a food that even finicky kids will eat, so there is a lot of harried domestic plov being made. But you can get a fully expressed Uzbek version at Danilovsky Market, online at plov.com , or at Food City—the surf-and-turf Tsukiji of Moscow.

The Big Mac

food management essay

So many of the difficulties in American-Russian relations come down to one foundational attitude problem: The Americans (that’s half of this writing duo) were incredibly, distressingly smug through the entire fall of the Soviet Union. We mistook Soviet failure for an American victory, and that made all the difference. What does that have to do with a Big Mac? Well, when Russia’s first McDonald’s opened on Pushkinskaya in 1990 and 5000 people turned out to wait in line for the first taste of America, we back home in the states mistook it for culinary and commercial superiority. But there was something more complicated happening: Russians had been denied Western goods for so long and with such force that any outside identity was much-needed oxygen. And the long-term victory, as McDonald’s has continued to thrive in post-Soviet Russia, really belongs to the local franchise, which used higher-quality ingredients than in the U.S. and created a chain that was successful not because of its American identity but because of its Russian modifications. We wouldn’t recommend eating at any McDonald’s, especially not when there is Teremok for your fast-food needs, but having a soda in the original location is one way to sit and ponder the sin of hubris. And to use the free toilet and Wi-Fi.

The crown jewel of Levantine meat preparations, perhaps the single greatest street meat in the world: Shawarma. It first came to Moscow with a shawarma joint across from the Passazh mall, opened in the early 90s by Syrian cooks who dazzled masses with their sizzling, spinning, spiced meat emporium. Lines that stretched into the hundreds of people weren’t uncommon in those heady early days. And even though the original spot closed many years ago, Moscow shawarma only grew from there, mutating into the beast it is today, where you’re likely to find chicken, cabbage, mayo and a thin tomato sauce all combining to make the Levant a distant memory.

Fish Tartare aka Sashimi

One result of the aforementioned American smugness is that the West seemed surprised at how rapidly 1990s Russia assimilated some of the most hardcore capitalist traits, including but not limited to conspicuous consumerism. Moscow’s new elite was very, very good at that. What could be more conspicuous that recreating a restrained, exclusive seafood cuisine from Japan in the chaotic, landlocked megacity of Moscow? The very improbability of high-end sushi and sashimi in Moscow fueled much of its allure, and even though the trends have moved on from sushi, you can still tell the emotional attachment that the oligarch class has to those formative wastes of money. Sumosan restaurant started in Moscow back in 1997 and has since expanded to Monte Carlo and Londongrad , where they serve a dish that they call Fish Tartare, among others, in their restaurants and through their private jet catering service.

Blue Cheese roll

If the early elite sushi restaurants in Moscow were the frivolous edge of a food phenomenon, then Yakitoriya , a chain which started in the late 1990s, democratized it with affordable sushi rolls geared to local tastes. The Blue Cheese Roll, available now on their menu, seems like the apex (or nadir) of the Russianized roll: salmon, smoked eel, cucumber, cream cheese, Blue Cheese sauce. It might not be Jiro’s dream, but a true Russian middle class, one that can work honestly, earn meaningful salaries, and have a freaky sushi roll at the end of the week just like the rest of us—that’s something worthing dreaming for. Blue Cheese Roll, Yakitoriya, 417₽ (US$6.70)

food management essay

If you’re American, have you ever wondered why tacos took over middle America but sopes remain virtually unknown? It’s curious how a country can assimilate some foods from their neighbors and but remain blissfully ignorant of others. That may explain what took place two years ago in Moscow, when the city seemingly discovered, as if for the first time, the bagged awesomeness that is khinkali , a soup dumpling from Russia’s southern neighbor Georgia. It became very trendy very quickly, and khinkali joints sprouted across Moscow like griby after a rain. But it wasn’t just that dish: what they were serving was a bit of the imagined southern, sybaritic lifestyle of the Caucasus, as promised in restaurant names like Est’ Khinkali Pit Vino ( Eat Khinkali Drink Wine ). Your best bets are at the stately Sakhli , around 100₽ (US$1.60) per soft, fulsome dumpling, or the more modernized Kafe Khinkalnaya on Neglinnaya Street , 100₽ (US$0.80) a dumpling.

food management essay

We have named burrata—yes, that Italian alchemy of cheese and cream—the Perfect Dish of Moscow 2018, if only because it is the Dish of the Moment, ready to be enjoyed at the height of its faddishness now, and equally ready to be replaced when the city decides to move on. Read Anna Maslovskaya’s masterful breakdown of why—and where—to eat burrata in Moscow.

Top image: Olivier salad with chicken. Photo by: Kvector /Shutterstock

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The Perfect Dish: The Moscow Burrata

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  1. Sustainable Management of Food Basics

    Why is Sustainable Management of Food Important? Wasted food is both a growing problem and an untapped opportunity. In 2019 alone, EPA estimates that about 66 million tons of wasted food were generated in the food retail, food service, and residential sectors, and most of this waste (about 60%) was sent to landfills. EPA estimated that in 2018 in the U.S., more food reached landfills and ...

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    The categories that are most likely to be wasted are vegetables, fruits, and roots, and tubers. Globally, 40-50% of fruits, vegetables, roots, and tubers are wasted or lost (Otles et al., 2015). For cereals and fish, the rate is 30%, and for meat, dairy, and oilseeds, the number reaches 20%.

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