Food goes from its origin (Farm) to an end customer through food supply chains, including production, harvesting, processing, handling, distribution, and retailing. During all these steps many technical, economical, and sociological factors come into play resulting in food wastage. Experts in the food industry have different opinions on the understanding of “food loss” and “food waste.” According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), food loss refers to the nutritious elements of a plant or animal product that is eventually not consumed by humans, to definitions published (Conrad and Blackstone, 2021).
According to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), the food that has accomplished the food supply network up to a final product that is of high quality and fit for feeding but is not eaten due to waste, regardless of whether it has gone bad or expired is termed as food waste. Food waste happens at the trade and feeding stages of the food chain, most commonly (but not always) (UNEP, 2022).
Food waste is among the most complicated problems that humanity is now confronting. Food systems are currently ineffective; one-third to half of all produced food is expected to be wasted before reaching a human (Elliot et al., 2017). More than 1.3 billion tons of edible food materials are wasted worldwide every year, including fruits and vegetables accounting for over 45–50% of the loss and are enough to feed more than one billion people (Georganas et al., 2020; Zutshi, 2018). Food waste happens throughout the food chain, from field to fork (Xue et al., 2017). Most of the food waste is produced at the bottom of the food chain, including consumer-facing enterprises (grocery stores, supermarkets, institutional food services, restaurants) and households (Dou et al., 2018).
The leading countries worldwide in terms of food waste generation are the United States of America; China; the European Union; Saudi Arabia; and Australia. The annual food waste turnover of these nations is shown in Fig. 1 (Rajeh et al., 2021). This diversity is influenced by cultural norms, affluence, urbanization, and future outlook. Some social-cultural, gatherings require the preparation of a large quantity of food to demonstrate charity, wealth, and social position, but much of this food is squandered (Neff et al., 2015).
In India, food waste is in an alarming condition. A lot of food is spurt as waste from canteen, restaurants, hotels, family functions and weddings. As per a report by the United Nation development program, out of total food produced around 40% is wasted in India. Also, food waste worth Rs50,000 crore approximately is wasted every year in India according to the agriculture ministry. This huge amount of food waste also generates 3.3 billion tons of greenhouse gases that directly affect the environment. India tops globally in terms of wheat and rice production. Most of the part of this is either exported or consumed within the country but still, around 21 million tons of wheat produced is wasted every year. This huge amount of waste wheat can be used either as food for humans or can be converted into animal feed.
However, it must be emphasized here that food waste occurs in practically all metropolitan environments, whether it is in developed countries, developing countries or underdeveloped countries. Indeed, cities in poorer countries may produce more food waste than cities in developed countries, owing to insufficient recycling resources (Rajeh et al., 2021).
Innovations in the agro-food business are required to increase worldwide food and nutritional security, along with environmental sustainability and lower production costs (Georganas et al., 2020). When food waste is used for animal feed it not only reduces its cost but also results in increased profits for livestock farmers. An added benefit to this is the reduction of environmental concerns caused by the degradation of such wastes(Kaur et al., 2020). Together with the possibility to fill the shortfall in animal feed.
Additionally, apart from that, it will also assist in minimizing the negative environmental impact of food waste and loss by lowering a portion of the carbon footprint (Zutshi, 2018). Nonetheless, to reduce present food waste levels improved waste management strategies must be employed, but, there will be some food waste chance persists. Moreover, certain food products contain inedible components that will inevitably end up in the waste stream. Landfilling method is the most typical one to deal with food waste, but, it is environmentally harmful and dangerous to human health(Elliot et al., 2017; Toolkit, 2013).