Tag: Circular Economy, Food Waste Hierarchy (FWH), agri-food supply chain
Researchers: Federica Ciccullo, Raffaella Cagliano, Giulia Bartezzaghi, Alessandro Perego
Department: DIG
In the context of the global food supply chain one of the key challenges is preventing or limiting food waste, a phenomenon that has an ecological, economical and social impact.
The Food Waste Hierarchy (FWH) framework offers a more sustainable and holistic approach to the production and the consumption of food at all levels of the supply chain. The FWH works well within the circular economy paradigm, an economic model of production that aims at greater sustainability, limiting the use of resources and minimizing production waste.
A paper by Federica Ciccullo, Raffaella Cagliano, Giulia Bartezzaghi, Alessandro Perego of the Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering (DIG) of Politecnico di Milano has recently published the paper “Implementing the circular economy paradigm in the agri-food supply chain: The role of food waste prevention technologies” on the Journal “Resources, Conservation and Recycling”.
The paper investigates how technology can play a key factor in implementing the principles of the Food Waste Hierarchy. Within the investigation, researchers carried out interviews on the role of technology in the food supply chain, both with technology providers and with companies involved in the production of food. The results identify strategies such as the adoption of various options of technologies as well as a strengthened cooperation at all levels of the supply chain, proving they can reduce food waste (i.e through the use of data science and big data to monitor and forecast the production) and can improve synergies with different level of the supply chain for waste prevention.
