Consumers discard a lot more food than widely believed : Estimates of global food waste using an energy gap approach and affluence elasticity of food waste

This work provides an internationally comparable consumer food waste dataset based on food availability, energy gap and consumer affluence. Such data can be used for constructing meaningful and internationally comparable metrics on food waste, such as those for Sustainable Development Goal 12. The data suggests that consumer food waste follows a linear-log relationship with consumer affluence and starts to emerge when consumers reach a threshold of approximately $6.70/day/capita level of expenditure. These findings also imply that most empirical models overestimate consumption by not accounting for the possibility of food waste in their analysis. The results also show that the most widely cited global estimate of food waste is underestimated by a factor greater than 2 (214 Kcal/day/capita versus 527 Kcal/day/capita). Comparison with estimates of US consumer food waste based on national survey data shows this approach can reasonably reproduce the results without needing extensive data from national surveys.</p

Consumers discard a lot more food than widely believed: Estimates of global food waste using an energy gap approach and affluence elasticity of food waste

This work provides an internationally comparable consumer food waste dataset based on food availability, energy gap and consumer affluence. Such data can be used for constructing meaningful and internationally comparable metrics on food waste, such as those for Sustainable Development Goal 12. The data suggests that consumer food waste follows a linear-log relationship with consumer affluence and starts to emerge when consumers reach a threshold of approximately $6.70/day/capita level of expenditure. These findings also imply that most empirical models overestimate consumption by not accounting for the possibility of food waste in their analysis. The results also show that the most widely cited global estimate of food waste is underestimated by a factor greater than 2 (214 Kcal/day/capita versus 527 Kcal/day/capita). Comparison with estimates of US consumer food waste based on national survey data shows this approach can reasonably reproduce the results without needing extensive data from national surveys

The macro-economic effects of increasing seaweed production in the North Sea Region

There is considerable interest in the Netherlands and Europe in the potential of seaweed as source of food, feed and biomass for a biobased economy. The aim of this study is to evaluate the macro-economic effects of increasing seaweed production in the North Sea. The explorative analysis showed that the seaweed sector in NSR is in its nascent stages. Despite an modelled 10% annual growth over next 30 years, production in the North Sea Region remains too small to have any visible impact on global markets for seaweed. The size of the seaweed sector remains too small to function as alternative source of protein in consumer diets. The Modular Applied GeNeral Equilibrium Tool (MAGNET) was used in this study. MAGNET is a recursive dynamic, multi-regional, multi-commodity CGE model, covering the entire global economy. The best available data from FAO and information from scientific literature were used. We emphasise that results are indicative and should be used as such. More reliable data collection and improved insights in the different cost structures in various North Sea region countries can improve the accuracy of the simulations