Extent and causes of food waste in Lithuania

Abstract

There is a pressing need to prevent and reduce food waste in Lithuanian food chain, especially at household and food catering levels which account for the largest part of lost edible food. Wasted food is an importance issue directly linked with social (e.g. food security and quality, health, etc.), environmental (e.g. energy, climate change, water, availability of resources, good environmental governance, etc.), and economic (e.g. increasing agrifood demand and households expenditure, resource allocation and efficiency, food price volatility, increasing waste management costs, consumption, commodity markets etc.) impacts. According to different studies, from one third to half of the world food production is not consumed, leading to negative impacts throughout the food supply chain including agriculture, food processing, retail and wholesale, food service/ catering and households. The aim was to investigate the extent and key causes of food waste in Lithuania. The investigation have been based on the analysis of food waste statistical data and oh the findings of different studies as well. There was an estimate of almost half a million tons of food waste in Lithuania in 2012. This is equivalent to 157 kilograms per person per year. These estimates include both edible food and inedible parts associated with food. Sectors contributing the most to food waste are the primary production sector (297.2 kilotons; 99 kg/capita/year) and the processing sector (105.6 kilotons; 35 kg/capita/year). Both sec-tors account for 86% of Lithuania’s total food waste. Around 2.7 kilotons of food are annually wasted in the households. This corresponds to less than 1 kg/capita/year and account for 0.6% of total food waste. That said, in the EU-28, household food waste averaged 92 kilograms per person per year in the same year. The last 13 percent of food waste comes from wholesale, retail, food service and catering. However, there is no accurate statistical data on these sectors.