Reducing food losses and wastes in the cereal sector: an option for strengthening global food security

Bc. Adam Tomka

Master's thesis

Abstract:

Feeding nine billion people by 2050 puts the challenge on sustainable consumption and sustainable use of resources. The food surpluses emerge through the all stages of food supply chain. The food surpluses at retail may be either used as compost, animal feed, donation and incinerated with energy recovery or landfilled without further use. The food waste is associated with inappropriate management of food surpluses and occur mainly at retail and household level. The management of food surpluses is assessed by the degree of recoverability. The objective of this thesis is to identify the main food waste drivers of bakery products at consumer level in the Czech Republic, the consumers purchasing manners and the way consumers manage food surpluses of bakery products. The sub objective is to investigate the volumes of wasted bakery products and propose a potential solution. The data was gathered through a structured questionnaire survey which was answered by 251 respondents. The results show that the volumes of food waste are relatively low since the bakery products have high degree of recoverability. The least waste was identified at group of consumers over 50 years (about 4%). The critical factor influencing the purchase of bakery products is freshness and quality (56%), not the price as it was supposed. More than a half of respondents buy bakery products at supermarkets (about 60%). The main drivers of food wastage are the lack of freshness (48%) and that the bread perishes (41%). The 80% of respondents were not aware about the consequences of food wasting and do not know the initiatives dealing with food waste. The solution is to frame the problem to public and to associate food waste with all its negative impacts and costs.

Keywords

Food surpluses, Sustainable consumption, Shopping behaviour, Causes of food waste, Food storage, Food waste initiatives, Food waste, Environment, Household survey, Bakery products, Bread

Language used: English

Date on which the thesis was submitted / produced: 22. 4. 2016

Thesis defence

• Supervisor: Dr. RNDr. Tomáš Ratinger

Czech University of Life Sciences Prague

Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences

Master programme / field:
Tropical Agriculture / International Development and Agricultural Economics