Abstract
Experts name a variety of causes of food waste generation. Most of them are caused by certain behaviours of actors (i.e. producers, distributors, retailers, consumers), the need to follow regulations or for problems in food supply chains. In particular, problems associated with financial and technological aspects and/or related to the existing waste policies and legislation, have a major influence on the extent to which food waste is produced. It would be wrong to say that food waste is a product of the 21st century. In the 1940s researchers listed the following causes of food waste: spoilage as a result of improper food handling, later, packaging, and transportation, overstocking, plate scraps and increased portion sizes (Kantor et al. 1997; Griffin et al. 2009). Today, the following causes are the subject to experts’ main concern and require immediate actions. Due to their relevance, each individual cause is addressed on this work.
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Leal Filho, W., Kovaleva, M. (2015). Causes of Food Waste Generation. In: Food Waste and Sustainable Food Waste Management in the Baltic Sea Region. Environmental Science and Engineering(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10906-0_3
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