Food waste: Challenges and opportunities for enhancing the emerging bio-economy

Around one third of all food produced for human consumption is wasted globally. This bears economic, social and environmental costs and calls for urgent and adequate measures. Such measures should target: (1) preventable food waste minimization; and (2) non-preventable food waste valorisation. This VSI addresses these two points by highlighting the need for improved connectivity between social scientists, economists, IT and software engineers and designers, and physical scientists to develop integrated strategies for food waste minimization and valorisation. Presently, there is considerable, and fair to say very good, activity in social and scientific methodologies but initiatives are piecemeal and not framed within a holistic vision of the problem. Indeed, reconciling waste minimization and waste valorisation strategies is the major element of novelty of this VSI. Indeed, a whole systems-thinking approach is required to achieve this target and minimise the impact of global drivers and megatrends, such as population growth. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.