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Globally, 1.3 billion tons of food are wasted or lost every year. This loss is valued at US $2.6 trillion and accounts for 8-10% of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). Food waste is a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions and results in a waste of natural resources. Therefore, reducing food waste can help diminish GHG emissions, improve food security, and promote healthy food systems. Packaging plays an important role in protecting food, enhancing quality and safety, and reducing food losses. Innovative and sustainable packaging strategies are necessary to decrease waste accumulation, particularly of plastics, safeguard food quality and safety, and reduce food losses and waste. Sustainable packaging aims to enhance the effectiveness of design and the use of environmentally friendly materials. This review provides an overview of the sustainable status of common packaging materials such as plastic, glass, metal, and paper/cardboard based on the circular economy, which includes recycling, reuse, composting, and bio-based packaging. The study examines new developments in food packaging materials in response to the growing demand for environmentally sustainable alternatives. Several applications from food companies and sustainable studies are discussed regarding continuous availability without impacting the environment. Ongoing research and technological advancements, such as material reduction, the development of innovative new materials like bio-plastics, and improvements in recycling, will contribute to increasing the acceptance of sustainable packaging. Definitions, requirements, limitations, legislation, and applications of sustainable packaging are explored. Sustainable packaging can stimulate economic growth and offer new opportunities for companies, notably by helping the environment and reducing the carbon footprint. However, the cost of sustainable packaging can still be challenging for small businesses. Determining whether consumers are willing to pay more for sustainable packaging is also crucial in this transition.

Food, water and energy are three fundamental areas of strategic importance that are closely interrelated for the survival of all living organisms and preserving a healthy ecosystem. Meeting the sustainable food needs and fighting hunger to ensure adequate, balanced and healthy nutrition for the increasing world population are among the top priorities of countries and international organizations. Food loss and waste are important problems globally. Food loss is defined as the decrease in the quantity and the quality of food as a result of the decisions and actions of food suppliers in the stages of the food production chain from primary production to distribution,whereas food waste refers to the decrease in the quantity and quality of food as a result of the decisions and actions of retailers, food service providers and consumers. Food loss and waste throughout the food supply chain begin at the field and farm stage in primary production and goes through a complex and multi-factorial process that includes storage, transportation, processing, packaging, retail and consumption stages. Food loss and waste vary greatly from country to country and even within the same country, depending on product type, geographical region and socio-economic factors. In high- and middle-income countries, food loss and waste occur mainly at the distribution and consumption stage, and in lowincome countries at the production and post-harvest stages. The global dimensions of food loss and waste are significant and cause environmental, social and economic risks and threats. Some 1,3 billion tons of food, approximately 1/3 of the total food produced worldwide, is lost and wasted annually. The economic loss caused by food loss and waste is approximately 1 trillion US dollars every year. Food loss and waste cause unnecessary use of 20-23% of the agricultural production area,24% of water consumption and 20-23% of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Food loss and waste cause 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions. About 38% of the total energy expenditure in the food supply chain is wasted through food loss and waste. Türkiye is one of the leading countries globally that waste the most food at the level of end consumer. According to the 2021 report of the United Nations Environment Program report, the United Nations Environment Program, 93 kilograms per person, a total of 7,7 million tons of food, is wasted every year at home, food service places and food vendors in Türkiye. Studies and policy targets reveal that approximately half of global food loss and waste can be prevented, and even if one quarter of it is prevented, the global hunger problem may be solved. In this context, reducing food loss and waste will make significant contributions to ensuring price stability by reducing production costs and fighting hunger, food security and healthy nutrition, sustainable environment and agriculture and food systems through mitigating climate change impacts, biodiversity protection, efficient use of agricultural lands and water resources. This chapter provides information on the global dimensions of food loss and waste and its social, economic and environmental impacts.

Food waste has been identified as one of the major factors that constitute numerous anthropogenic activities, especially in developing countries. There is a growing problem with food waste that affects every part of the waste management system, from collection to disposal; finding long-term solutions necessitates involving all participants in the food supply chain, from farmers and manufacturers to distributors and consumers. In addition to food waste management, maintaining food sustainability and security globally is crucial so that every individual, household, and nation can always get food. “End hunger, achieve food security and enhanced nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture” are among the main challenges of global sustainable development (SDG) goal 2. Therefore, sustainable food waste management technology is needed. Recent attention has been focused on global food loss and waste. One-third of food produced for human use is wasted every year. Source reduction (i.e., limiting food losses and waste) and contemporary treatment technologies appear to be the most promising strategy for converting food waste into safe, nutritious, value-added feed products and achieving sustainability. Food waste is also employed in industrial processes for the production of biofuels or biopolymers. Biofuels mitigate the detrimental effects of fossil fuels. Identifying crop-producing zones, bioenergy cultivars, and management practices will enhance the natural environment and sustainable biochemical process. Traditional food waste reduction strategies are ineffective in lowering GHG emissions and food waste treatment. The main contribution of this study is an inventory of the theoretical and practical methods of prevention and minimization of food waste and losses. It identifies the trade-offs for food safety, sustainability, and security. Moreover, it investigates the impact of COVID-19 on food waste behavior.

The current food packaging model in most cases is a linear material flow model and is far from the sustainable alternative – circular economy – approach where materials are recycled and recovered at the end of each service life. High concern is rising on packaging waste and especially plastic packaging and negative environmental impact. A number of factors, including policy and legislative changes, rising concerns on food and packaging waste, environmental contamination, and world demand for food and energy resources, undoubtedly make an impact on development of biodegradable and compostable packaging made from renewable environment friendly resources and a sustainable waste management opportunity at the end of product life. Food packaging industry already has options of compostable packaging that meets biodegradation and composting standards and does not impact environmental contamination, but a variety of existing bio-labels such as biobased, biodegradable, and compostable appear misleading for consumers, and terms biodegradable and compostable are often used as synonyms, although they are not the same.

Worldwide, the number of people suffering from hunger is around 702 and 828 million, and 2.3 billion people have moderate or severe food insecurity. This situation is striking, considering that the vast amount of food discarded globally equals 1.3 billion tons annually. For this reason, in 2015, world leaders agreed to a global agenda for 2030, adopting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Among its objectives, are to fight against poverty, hunger, and gender inequality worldwide and achieve environmental sustainability. With this framework, this article uses a top-down mass balance approach to calculate food loss and waste (FLW) by country’s food security level. In addition, it explores the causes of FLW and its impacts on natural resources, climate change, food security, and the SDGs in countries with a weak and moderate level of food security. The estimated global FLW was 1498 million tons of food in 2017. The most food discarded was concentrated in countries with good food security, 894.3 million tons. In contrast, the lowest food discard occurred in countries with a weak level of food security, 11.4 million tons. The primary outcome of this paper is to establish a link between the levels of food security and food loss in different countries, which may serve as a guide for the design of specific public policies.

Romania’s agri-food system reveals a striking paradox, evolving from chronic scarcity and rationing under the communist regime to the present challenge of extensive food waste. This transformation has profound implications for sustainability, social equity, and the country’s transition toward a bioeconomy-based model. The study examines this paradox by identifying the historical, economic, and social determinants of food insecurity and waste in Romania,and by assessing bioeconomic measures to strengthen agri-food sustainability. Drawing on an integrative review of 68 academic, institutional, and legislative sources (2020–2025), the research applies comparative, historical, and policy analyses to evaluate Romania’s position within the European context. The results indicate that weak institutional coordination, fragmented legislation, inefficient resource use, and wasteful consumer behaviour have driven the shift from food crises to food waste. Although temporary price caps and the 2024 law on food waste reduction provided short-term relief, systemic issues—poor enforcement, limited infrastructure, and low circular bioeconomic integration—persist. With over 6,000 tons of food discarded daily, nearly half of which comes from households, Romania must enhance bioeconomic practices such as waste valorisation and organic farming. The study offers practical insights for policymakers by linking food waste reduction to innovation, thereby supporting the EU Green Deal and the Sustainable Development Goals 2, 10, and 12.

Agricultural method has proved to be India's most vital source of wealth, with agricultural products accounting for 80 percent of rural communities' income. India's overall grain output is expected to rise by 2% to 303 million tons in the 2020–2021 harvest season, setting a new high. In comparison to other countries, this is a substantial amount of grain. Every year, the country wastes 67 million tons of food, valued approximately 92,000 crores. This is the same as feeding everyone in the state. Food waste must be reduced urgently, which demands the deployment of appropriate storage strategies to protect agricultural goods. Food safety is impacted from food waste, hence proper food storage is critical. They can cut down on losses while also increasing the amount of food accessible. In this project, we proposed a system that includes an embedded and IoT-enabled system that can be deployed in remote areas for small-scale farmers with very low accessibility. It includes OCP (monitoring, control, prevention) for storage parameters such as temperature, humidity, movement, theft detection, and smoke. There are two microcontrollers and various sensors to perform the operation. Multiple sensor nodes installed elsewhere in the warehouse. Provides farmers with information about the warehouse environment via mobile SMS and cloud websites.

Food security exists when all people at all times have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food. Food security is built on four pillars: availability, access, utilization and stability. Food and nutrition security embraces meeting energy, protein and nutrient needs for healthy life. Food systems overlap with agricultural systems in the area of food production, but also comprise the diverse set of institutions, technologies and practices that govern the way food is marketed, processed, transported, accessed and consumed. The food system activities are grouped into four categories: producing food, processing and packaging food, distributing and retailing food, and consuming food. The review paper aims at highlighting the connections and linkages between food sustainability and food security. There are very strong linkages between food and nutrition security, responsible environmental stewardship and greater fairness in food management. They intersect in agricultural and food systems at the global, national and local levels. Today, the main concern for the food and agricultural sector is to provide simultaneously enough food, in quantity and quality, to meet the nutritional needs of a growing population and to conserve natural resources for future generations. A sustainable food system supports food security, makes optimal use of natural and human resources, is culturally acceptable and accessible, environmentally sound and economically fair and viable, and provides the consumer with nutritionally adequate, safe, healthy and affordable food for present and future generations. Changes in both food consumption and food production are important to ensure more sustainable food systems and to achieve food and nutrition security in the Mediterranean region. Since diets sustainability is of paramount importance for achieving food and nutrition security, there is an urgent need to design and implement appropriate policies to improve the economic, environmental and social sustainability of the current food consumption patterns.

The world is at a critical moment in the fight against food loss and waste, with momentum building to address the 1.3 billion tons of food that is lost or wasted each year. But action is not yet at a pace needed to achieve SDG Target 12.3 by 2030. The report Reducing Food Loss and Waste: Setting a Global Action Agenda identifies a three-pronged approach to halve food loss and waste by 2030. The report calls on governments, companies, farmers, consumers, and everyone in between to: “Target-Measure-Act”: Set food loss and waste reduction targets, measure to identify hotspots of food loss and waste and monitor progress over time, and take action on the hotspots; pursue a short “to-do” list per player in the food supply chain as “no regret” first steps toward taking action; and collaborate on 10 “scaling interventions” to ramp up deployment of Target-Measure-Act and the to-do list. There are enormous benefits to reducing food loss and waste. Successfully halving food loss and waste would close the gap between food needed in 2050 and food available in 2010 by more than 20 percent. It would avoid the need to convert an area the size of Argentina into agricultural land. And it would lower greenhouse gas emissions by 1.5 gigatons per year by 2050, an amount more than the current energy- and industry- related emissions of Japan. This report has been produced by World Resources Institute with support from The Rockefeller Foundation, and in partnership with United Nations Environment, Natural Resources Defense Council, Iowa State University, The University of Maryland’s Ed Snider Center, The Consortium for Innovation in Postharvest Loss and Food Waste Reduction, Wageningen University and Research, the World Bank, and WRAP.

Food waste is a global challenge, with profound implications for food security, resource utilization, and sustainability. A circular economy represents a promising solution in addressing food waste effectively by keeping food materials and products in use and circulating them within the economy. To provide an overview of the research on food waste and the circular economy model in the past decade, this study examines 1022 documents on food waste and circular the economy to ascertain the state, themes, and knowledge structure of the field. The results showed that the number of publications has increased greatly in the past decade. “Circular economy of food”, “bioenergy”, “waste valorization”, “waste management”, “resource recovery”, and “environmental assessment” were the major research themes. Earlier studies focused on resource recovery from organic waste and the bioeconomy of bio-products; recent research interests shifted to sustainability and the valorization of agri-food waste. On the other hand, some highly cited documents and productive authors were important in the development of research on food waste and the circular economy. Furthermore, three groups of journals—“food and environmental sciences”, “open access”, and “environmental sustainability and resource management”—and five clusters of international collaboration—“European Union Group”, “advanced economy group”, “agricultural economies”, “global influencers”, and “isolated countries”—were identified. This study provides readers with an overview of the research field of food waste and the circular economy.

Food waste is a critical issue with implications for consumers, environmental sustainability, and supply chain dynamics. The primary objective of this research was to conduct a bibliometric analysis of recent literature on food waste, using Web of Science Core Collection and Scopus to identify gaps for future research projects especially on the field of food waste and sustainable food waste management. This approach allowed for a comprehensive assessment of the performance and efficiency of scientific research in this area. The use of both databases was a distinctive aspect of the study, as previous research has typically relied on a single database. The study analysed publication trends between 2019 and 2024, focusing on highly cited documents, research areas, and keyword co-occurrence patterns, highlighting the growing relevance and importance of sustainability. In particular, there has been a significant increase in research published in environmental sciences, engineering, and energy fuels since 2020, reflecting the growing recognition of the role of food waste in reducing environmental footprints and enhancing energy efficiency and sustainability. The keyword analysis showed that between 2021 and 2023, the dominant themes were circular economy, sustainable development, development goals, supply chains, and life cycle assessments. More recent publications have shifted towards topics such as artificial intelligence, Sustainable Development Goals, empirical analysis, energy transition and green marketing. The research shows that the hospitality industry plays a crucial role in the sustainable food waste management, with effective strategies involving management practices, employee training, consumer behavior, and digital technologies offering both environmental and economic benefits. Further research is needed to explore the influence of cultural, institutional, emotional, and demographic factors, as well as the potential of circular economy models and platform-based solutions to enhance waste reduction and sustainability in different contexts. • A bibliometric analysis on food waste was performed using WOS and Scopus databases • The bibliometric analysis highlighted the global distribution of publications, with the UK, Italy, Spain, China, and the US leading in terms of output • Between 2021 and 2023, the dominant themes were circular economy, sustainable development, development goals, supply chains, and life cycle assessments • Recent publications moved towards sustainable development and bibliometric analysis, environmental sustainability and responsibility, circular business and economy. • The integration of circular economy approach into sustainability goals is a key strategy for reducing waste and promoting resource efficiency

Influence and strategies for enhanced biohydrogen production from food waste

Globally, one-third of the food produced is wasted or underutilized which accounted for about 1.3 billion tonnes of food. If the food waste (FW) is disposed of in the landfill, it decomposes under the anaerobic condition that releases methane gas, a harmful greenhouse gas. FW is also referring as biodegradable materials where it has a higher moisture content that easily breakdown by the microbe and could produce odor problems. Thus, a study on FW generation rate and its characteristics were carried out. Physical and chemical characteristics of the FW which include the density, food waste composition, the generation rate, pH, moisture content, ash content, C/N ratio and the calorific value were determined based on the Malaysian Standard MS 2505:2012. Based on the field and laboratory work analysis, it was observed that the generation rate for the café A and B was between 0.04 kg/cap/day to 0.112 kg/cap/day and 0.01 kg/cap/day to 0.119 kg/cap/day. Meanwhile, the density of the FW was in the range between 0.035 kg/m3 to 0.077 kg/m3. Based on the standard method recommendation, 5 compositions were tabulated which include FW, plastic film, plastic rigid, paper and others (aluminum, steel and etc. ). Food waste demarcated was further divided into five categories such as rice, noodles, vegetable, shells and meat & bones. Rice and noodles produced the largest amount which was 52.50% and 55.52%. Moisture content and an ash content of the FW was recorded at 71.52% and 25.31% where it was slightly acidic (6.16) in nature. The calorific value for wet and dried FW was 4539.914 kcal/kg and 2091.3 kcal/kg. Based on the result obtained, the suitable method to treat food waste from the cafeteria was proposed.

Background & Objectives Global food chains have become longer and more complex owing to the decoupling of geographical locations where food is produced and consumed. Increases in global food prices, lower levels of production in grain-producing nations and rising costs of oil, fertilizers and transportation have raised concerns about food security in many countries, including Qatar. The population of Qatar has dramatically increased from 660,238 in 2003 to 2,077,357 in 2014. As a food-import-dependent nation, Qatar heavily relies on food coming from other countries. However, reports on food security and observations of the project team suggest that food supply chains have not been re-designed to accommodate this rapid increase in population and to account for the increased complexity due to globalised distribution. Distribution of food is challenging because it has to ensure that the product maintains its quality and safety while it is transported downstream on the chain and until it reaches the consumer. Inappropriate conditions and poor handling result in food being wasted. An awardee of the National Priorities Research Program 2014, this research project aims to provide strategic input for management of food supply chains considering characteristics of distribution and consumption of food in Qatar. Methods This research will incorporate food quality and food safety considerations into distribution optimisation models because transportation of food between various supply chain members affects food quality and food safety as well as food waste originating from deteriorating quality and emerging safety risks. It will focus on operational problems occurring during transportation and storage of food and provide an estimate of the waste occurring in distribution. Moreover, it will build a simulation model to establish the link between distribution frequencies and the food quality and food safety, exploring key interrelationships among quality and safety in food supply chains. Results In the distribution of food, management challenges faced by organisations delivering food to Qatar are related to limited shelf lives of food products, temperature and humidity requirements, possible interaction effects between products, and delivery time windows of products. Food wasted at the end of the food supply chain incurs the highest costs and uses the highest level of energy because the food has already been grown, processed, transported, stored, and sold before ending up in the trash. This research project will investigate consumers' contribution to the generation of food waste in an attempt to reduce the waste originating from variations in demand. Conclusions Waste in the food supply chain results in inefficient use of natural resources such as water, energy and land through supply chain operations such as production, processing, distribution, consumption and disposal. The problem of food waste is emotive because it raises ethical issues about the accessibility of food while millions of people around the world live in hunger. The waste, cost and environmental impact due to production, distribution and consumption of food occur globally. The significance of this project lies in its focus on food waste as complementary to the ongoing efforts in Qatar for achieving food security and environmental sustainability.

Food security and safety issues have been central to Extension programming since its inception, but emerging concerns over the issues of food waste and system inefficiency have brought new challenges to the forefront. Social change ideas related to reducing food waste include use of secondary quality produce, date label elimination, repurposing of food scraps, and donation and gleaning of food. Implementation of these ideas often intersects with issues of food safety. Therefore, it is incumbent on Extension professionals nationwide to consider how best to use content and expertise to address modern food security, food waste, and food safety challenges.