Measuring the nutritional price of food wastes from a life cycle approach: the nutritional food waste footprint

Food production and consumption systems can have high impacts on the environment. In a global framework of growing concern for food security and environmental protection, the selection of food products with higher nutritional content and lower environmental impact is a challenge. To assess the reliability of different strategies along the food supply chain, a readily and understandable measure of food waste cost through its nutritional content is necessary. The methodology presented in this work allows to quantify Food Wastes and Food Losses at the various stage of the food supply chain (agricultural production, postharvest handling and trade, processing, retail, food service industry and households). The amount of avoidable and unavoidable food wastes and losses is calculated through waste composition analyses and food wastes and food losses were classified. In addition, the nutritional and economic losses of food are estimated. Hence, it is possible to propose a balance between nutritional and economic variables in order to facilitate the decision-making process for the proper food waste management, which is a first step to further estimate the environmental impacts of this sector. Furthermore, a Nutritional Food Waste Footprint (NFWF) based on the described variables is proposed, to identify those food categories with greater nutritional loss intensity.