LCA Food 2012 in Saint Malo, France! - Manifestations et colloques ...

PARALLEL SESSION 7C: FOOD CHAIN AND FOOD WASTE 8 th Int. Conference on LCA in the
Agri-Food Sector, 1-4 Oct 2012
recorded the reasons for discarding food themselves, it is not possible to evaluate the accuracy and truthfulness
of the diaries. The act of weighing may in itself also have reduced waste. In addition, the respondents
comprised more families with children and households with multiple people than the Finnish average. The
average household size in the sample, 2.8, was markedly higher than that of an average Finnish household,
which in 2009 was 2.08 (OSF 2010).
On the other hand, when we studied avoidable food waste volumes in restaurants and workplace restaurants
and canteens, the results were about same, and were lower than for other countries. Leftovers discarded
by customers ranged from 4% to 8%, which is less than recorded in international studies (Engstrom 2004,
The School Food Trust 2009). In addition, a recent Finnish biowaste study reported similar, moderate low
levels of food waste (HSY 2011).
Table 1. Avoidable food waste in the Finnish food supply chain (Silvennoinen et al., 2012b).
Sector Households Food Services Retail Sector Food industry Total
Total millions kg/year 120-160 75-85 65-75 75-140 335-460
kg per year per capita 22-30 14-16 12-14 14-26 62-86
Altogether, households, restaurants, the food industry and the retail sector produce 62-86 kg of food waste
per year per capita, corresponding to 335-460 million kg of food waste in Finland per year (Table 1). Comparing
our results, for which 10-15% of avoidable food in the entire chain is wasted, to other studies our
results seems rather low, while some of the international studies (EU 2010, Gustavsson 2011) reported large
food waste percentages. These marked differences are hard to explain based on individual aspects such as
primary production not being included in the Foodspill study. Consequently we still need information from
other, complementary studies, especially waste-bin composition analysis, to provide a more reliable and
comprehensive account of the volume and composition of food waste in different sectors of the food supply
chain.
Overall, the production of food that is wasted causes marked, unnecessary negative environmental impacts.
A huge amount of resources is used to cultivate, produce, store and distribute food that is not consumed.
All these resources, e.g. land, fertilisers, fuel, materials, transportation, water, and electricity, result
in significant greenhouse gas emissions and also have other environmental impacts, such as increased water
eutrophication.
Examining the economic perspective of food waste, we find every year that the average household uses
€4,300 for purchasing food, of which the value of discarded food is €220. Thus, the total sum for food waste
from Finnish households is roughly €550 million per annum (OSF 2011, Viinisalo et al., 2008).
When studying the contribution for different food categories, the result is quite similar for the carbon
footprint: the biggest economic value categories were home cooked food, pork and beef, vegetables and
bread. However, the food waste data generated did not turn out to be completely comparable as such. There
remains a considerable amount of research to do to explain better the phenomenon of food wastage, which is,
in any case, quite a new research field.
5. References
Engstrom, R., Carlsson-Kanyama, A., 2004. Food losses in food service institutions: Examples from Sweden. Food Policy, Volume
29, Issue 3, Pages 203-294.
European Commission, 2010. Preparatory study of food waste across EU 27. Technical Report 2010 – 054. 210 p.
Foley et al., (2011). Solutions for a cultivated planet. Nature 478, 337–342 (20 October 2011)
Gustavsson, J., Cederberg, C., Sonesson, U., Otterdijk, R., Meybeck, A., 2011. Global Food Losses and Food Waste. FAO Rome,
Italy. 2011
Hartikainen, H., Koivupuro, H.-K., Katajajuuri, J.-M., Korhonen, V., 2012. Households’ perceptions about the influence of food
packaging sizes on their food waste levels. Packaging Technology and Science. Submitted. (14 p.)
HSY, 2011. Helsinki Region Environmental Services Authority. Pääkaupunkiseudun biojätteen koostumusAbstact: Properties of
Biowaste in Helsinki Metropolitan Area.
http://www.hsy.fi/tietoahsy/Documents/Julkaisut/6_2011_Paakaupunkiseudun_biojatteen_koostumus.pdf
Jones, T., 2005. Using Contemporary Archaeology and Applied Anthropology to Understand Food Loss in the American Food System,
Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology, University of Arizona, Tucson.
Katajajuuri, J.-M., 2009. In Valtioneuvoston tulevaisuusselonteko ilmasto- ja energiapolitiikasta. Government Foresight Report on
Long-term Climate and Energy Policy: Towards a Low-carbon Finland. In Finnish.
KFS Konsument Föreningen Stockholm, 2009. Rapport från en slaskhink.
Knudsen, M. L. C., 2009. Affaldsforebyggelse i husholdninger – muligheder og barrierer for Danmark. Roskilde University, Specialreport,
December 2009.
Koivupuro, H.-K., Jalkanen, L., Katajajuuri, J.-M., Reinikainen, A., Silvennoinen, K., 2010. Food waste in the supply chain. Elintarvikeketjussa
syntyvä ruokahävikki, kirjallisuuskatsaus. MTT report 12: 73 p. http://www.mtt.fi/mttraportti/pdf/mttraportti12.pdf
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