Suchergebnisse

The objective of the project is to propose and implement new solutions to tackle food waste. Based on the principle of circular economy, the strategy of the project is to prevent food losses from turning into waste by working synergistically on different action points. The main goal of the project is to develop an innovative network of expertise, able to implement new food recovery logistics chains. This study arises out of the need for new strategies to: (i) prevent and reduce the volume of surplus food generated, (ii) implement and harmonize the recovery system for social solidarity purposes, and (iii) enhance the conversion of food waste into safe and sustainable feed products. For this reason, the study is divided in three sections: source reduction, feed hungry people and feed animals. The section entitled "source reduction" presents two studies: the first study is focused on food packaging, a fundamental aspect related to the extension of the product's life that helps preventing waste. The second study is an analysis of the correlation between food portion size in school catering and the generation of food waste, which can result when food is not accurately proportioned. In the section called "feed hungry people" three studies are included. The first identifies critical points with respect to the food recovery chain, while the second study is a Manual of Good Practices for Charitable Organization approved by the Italian Ministry of Health. Finally, at the end of this section an applicative study is presented that was conducted in collaboration with Fondazione Banca Popolare of Lodi and Centro Solidale del Diritto al Cibo of Lodi. In the final section "Feed Animals", two scientific works are presented; the first is a qualitative analysis of agri-food waste and by-products in order to estimate their bioactive contents and a possible reuse as functional ingredients in animal feed. The last work examines the European regulatory framework regarding animal feeding in order to evaluate possible new interventions to reuse food waste, not only vegetable matter, in the pet food industry. The project builds on the fact that around 88 million tonnes of food are wasted annually in the European Union, with associated costs estimated at 143 billion euros. Thus, looking for every opportunity to prevent food waste and strengthen sustainability of the food system is one of the most crucial issues of modern societies. The key output of the project consists of an improvement of the overall sustainability of food chains, from social, environmental and economic perspectives.

The identification of new strategies to prevent or at least reduce the volume of food waste needs to consider a wide range of solutions and priorities that EU policy is recently implementing. Based on the principles of the circular economy, one of the most promising solutions is to prevent food losses turning into waste by working synergistically on different action points. Amongst them, the strategy of repurposing food waste through conversion in a safe and sustainable feed product is acquiring huge interest amongst scientists and policy makers. In this context, the aim of the work is to depict the landscape of the existent solutions for the valorisation of food waste for animal feeding, through a systematic review of the literature, to answer the following three research questions: 1) To what extent is the interest of the academic research increasing, in line with the priorities of the international political agenda? 2) Which kinds of approaches have been used to explore this issue? 3) What type of solutions is the scientific literature able to propose to support policy makers in setting the strategies for the re‐use of food waste as animal feed? A set of keywords has been applied for the search in the "Topic" option of the Web of Science Core Collection resulting in 114 references. The application of filters for the identification of the relevant papers led to a final dataset composed of 31 scientific studies. Papers have been coded according to the nature of the study, namely theoretical or experimental, the source and the type of food waste considered, the type of technology used to process food waste (if any) and the destination of the final product. The literature suggests that the most positive aspect related to these practices is the low environmental impact, while the most critical issue regards compliance with the EU legal framework that is strictly dependent on the composition of the wasted food. The analysis revealed a growing interest in this field of research, with a great focus on the estimation of the environmental impact but few studies targeted on the assessment of the economic dimension.

Food loss andwaste have a negative environmental impact due to thewater, land, energy and other natural resources used to produce the wasted food, along with post-consumption disposal costs. Reducing food waste will thus help improve sustainability and decrease the environmental impact of the food system. Using food waste for animal feed is of growing importance in terms of the policies targeted at tackling food waste but the current legal framework in the European Union (EU) strongly restricts the possibility of using food waste for this purpose. The aim of this work is to evaluate the feasibility of innovative measures for feed production in the EU and to identify the best strategies to implement them. First, a technical evaluation of a case study is presented, which is a process developed in the United States for urban food waste transformation into animal feed. Second, there is an analysis of the potential application of this process in the European Union within the current legal framework. The results reveal that the feed product derived from food waste is compliant with EU safety requirements and is nutritionally valuable. This work also suggests that the implementation of this kind of process in the European Union has great potential, provided that food surplus is recovered and treated before it turns into waste and that the different types of food surplus identified are used as feed for the right animal type in accordance with European legislation (i.e., livestock, aquarium fish, pets). On these terms, pet food can be the most concrete strategy for using food waste within the European context. In general, the implementation of feed-from-food measures to reduce food waste in Europe is already possible and does not need to wait for further policy interventions.