Open . 2017; 2: 195–204

Review Article Open Access

Enrica Imbert* Food valorization options: opportunities from the bioeconomy

DOI 10.1515/opag-2017-0020 Received March 22, 2017; accepted March 29, 2017 1 Introduction

Abstract: The world is confronted with the depletion Climate change, especially its consequences on several of natural resources due to their unsustainable use, developing countries, together with the growing increased global competiveness, increasing population population trends expected over the coming years, make and other environmental and economic challenges. food production a crucial issue1. In addition to the need Under the European 2020 growth strategy launched in for higher levels of energy and goods, a larger population 2010, Europe has set itself the goal of shifting from linear also implies tremendous pressure on agriculture and to circular models of production and consumption. In this farming systems. In this context, prevention and context, food poses a great challenge. minimization of food waste is recognized as a key action This study focusses on the possible destinations for food (Foley et al. 2011). In addition, food waste is highly waste, specifically, on the most sustainable practices that polluting as it leads to the squandering of the resources turn waste into valuable resources. Particular attention used in all stages of the food value chain, such as fresh is devoted to the potential offered by fast-growing water, soil, , energy (FAO 2013; Lundqvist et al. sectors such as the bioeconomy, which is contributing to 2008), and to significant greenhouse gas emission levels increased energy and materials production with reduced (Garnett 2011), in particular methane when food waste environmental impact, at the same time creating new job reaches landfill (Adhikari et al. 2006). Negative social opportunities. In this paper we will argue that an holistic impact, often associated with food security (see Stuart approach considering the issue of food wastage as part of 2009; Kummu et al. 2012), has also been proven to be a broader emerging bio-economy and circular-economic directly intertwined with food waste. Finally, food waste model, might provide win-win solutions able to minimize has a huge economic cost for consumers, producers and wastage, promote income growth and job creation, and public bodies responsible for food waste management prompt sustainable local development. However, in (see, among others, WRAP 2015; Buzby and Hyman 2012; order to enable an effective transition to a circular bio- Venkat 2011). economy able to minimize the impact of food wastage, In this review paper we will try to frame the key the economic, social, and environmental sustainability issues associated with food waste into the emerging bio- of this new model must be properly evaluated through economy and circular-economic mode, suggesting that appropriate tools, e.g. through an overall Life Cycle these three concepts are intertwined, and considering Sustainability Assessment (LCSA). them unitarily might provide win-win solutions that minimize wastage, promote income growth and job Keywords: food waste, food waste valorization practices, creation, and prompt sustainable local development. The secondary biomass, bioeconomy paper is structured as follows: in Section 2 we frame the key problems associated with food waste, distinguishing among countries with different income levels. In Section 3 we present alternative practices to tackle food waste, focussing on the European experience. In Section 4 we discuss opportunities associated with food waste

1 “The world population is projected to increase by more than one Bioeconomy-in-transition *Corresponding author: Enrica Imbert, billion people within the next 15 years, reaching 8.5 billion in 2030, Research Group, Unitelma Sapienza, University of Roma, Rome, and to increase further to 9.7 billion in 2050 and 11.2 billion by 2100” Italy, E-mail: [email protected] (UN, 2015, p.2)

© 2017 Enrica Imbert, published by De Gruyter Open. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License. 196 E. Imbert management and bio-economy and circular-economic in shaping strategies to reduce wastage (Papargyropoulou modes in detail. Section 5 concludes the article. et al. 2014). The global volume of food wastage is estimated to be 1.6 Gtonnes of “primary product equivalent”, whereas the total wastage for the edible part of food is 1.3 2 Framing the problem Gtonnes (FAO 2013). Although, as mentioned above, it is commonly Given the above-mentioned environmental and socio- recognized that in medium and high-income countries economic negative and lasting impacts, food waste food losses mainly occur in the final stages of the supply remains at the forefront of the global agenda. It has been chain, significant food losses have been found also in the estimated that, globally, 30-40% of food gets lost along early stages (Gustavsson et al. 2011). According to a study the entire food supply chain (Godfray et al. 2010), i.e. conducted on the EU-28 (FUSIONS 2016), the processing from production to consumption. It is indeed a problem sector is the second contributor to food waste after common to both developed and developing countries, households. However, households alone contribute to even though a major pattern has been recognized; in low- more than half of the total waste production. Indeed many income countries food is mainly wasted at early stages of studies, especially in western countries, have focussed the food supply chain, i.e. production, transport, storage on the household level. Several have been accounting and processing levels, mainly due to poor infrastructure for edible food waste, with particular attention to the and technology and economic limitations while in consumer level both at national (e.g. Katajajuuri et al. medium and high-income countries food is wasted at 2014) and regional level (e.g. Vanham et al. 2015), while a the final stages, i.e. at distribution and household level number of studies have been specifically centred on major (Parfitt et al. 2010; Gustavsson et al. 2011). trends, motivations/behaviours related to food waste (e.g. Overall, the total amount of food waste production Koivupuro et al. 2012; Graham-Rowe et al. 2014 Secondi is almost the same between developing and developed et al. 2015). countries2 (Gustavsson et al. 2011). However, as already Overall, despite efforts made by international mentioned, there is a significant amount of variation organizations and scholars, outcomes on food waste are in the stages of the supply chain at which losses occur, hardly comparable, mostly because they often utilize depending on different levels of development. In addition, different methods of data collection (surveys, statistical as emphasized by Parfitt et al. (2010), specific countries’ estimations, combination of both) and there is still no features (e.g. culture, climate, type of crops each country common adopted definition of food waste (Bräutigam produces, market access and legislation) do play a role in et al. 2014); other terms such as food loss and food wastage determining wastage and in industrialized countries food are commonly used. This obviously makes quantification waste has been found to be somehow correlated to income and international comparisons difficult, with negative (e.g. Lyndhurst 2007; Secondi et al. 2015).3 implications on strategies for tackling food waste (Falcone When possible (e.g. FAO 2013; FUSIONS 2016) food and Imbert 2017). International institutions and research waste should be measured by taking into account its centres, as well as several scholars, have been working on two main components, namely avoidable (edible) and a common standard5. The EC has declared that a common unavoidable (inedible)4, as this distinction is also crucial and consistent methodology for monitoring food waste levels in member states will be adopted by the end of 2018. 2 Even though it is higher on a per-capita basis in developed coun- tries. See also FAO, Key facts on you should know! http://www.fao.org/save-food/resources/keyfindings/en/ ac- 3 Tackling Food Waste cessed 12/02/2017. Drawing on FAO (2014), and Food Loss and Waste Accounting and Reporting Standard (2016) it has been not included As pointed out by the literature (see WRAP 2017; in the definition of food waste respectively food that is consumed in Papargyropoulou et al. 2014; Garnett 2011), food waste6 excess and crops intentionally not grown for human consumption (e.g. for bioenergy). 3 This correlation is not strong (e.g. Koivupuro et al. 2012). 5 Hanson et al. (2016): Food Loss and Waste Accounting and Re- 4 Avoidable food waste has been defined as food that might be eaten porting Standard http://www.wri.org/sites/default/files/FLW_Stan- but has been thrown into the garbage due to a lack of proper ma- dard_Exec_Summary_final_2016.pdf). nagement, and unavoidable waste as the inedible scraps, such as, 6 Food waste is included in the broader biowaste category, which for example bones and egg shell. Avoidable food also incorporates has been defined as biodegradable garden and park waste, food possibly avoidable food, for example, bread crusts, which depend on and kitchen waste from households, restaurants, caterers and retail consumers’ food habits. (WRAP, 2008). premises, comparable waste from food processing plants, and other Food waste valorization options: opportunities from the bioeconomy 197 can be tackled with a range of activities whose priority by the European Union11 since, as mentioned above, order is led by the broader waste hierarchy7. The European composting, as well as the digestate (from anaerobic Union has developed its own approach, which is defined digestion) when used as a , is included in recycle by Directive 2008/98/EC8, setting a precise ranking of activities.12 However, this is not the case in countries such activities based on the highest level of environmental as the United States where composting is positioned at the sustainability (Figure 1). Firstly, this is done using fifth tier of Environmental Protection Agency hierarchy prevention activities all along the food supply chain, (i.e. penultimate)13, after industrial uses and before aimed at avoiding food waste generation. These include landfill/ incineration, namely the least preferred option. new consumption behaviours. For example, dietary At the European level, new guidelines on food donation changes such as lowering the purchase of livestock and animal feed are going to be published by the end of products while increasing more seasonable vegetables 2017 as they represent two key priorities (EC 2017); this is and fruit (see Westhoek et al. 2014). because, according to , re-use and recycle activities are preferable over energy recovery practices. A simplification of practices applied to food donation and animal feed falls within the broader European Figure 1: The European waste hierarchy. Source: Adapted from EC, revised legislative proposals on waste. These include a 2010 and http://ec.europa.eu/environment/waste/framework/ proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Directive 2008/98/EC on waste Food waste prevention activities are the most preferred (EC 2015), a Proposal for a Directive of the European option as they have greater potential for improved Parliament and of the Council amending Directive 94/62/ environmental and socioeconomic outcomes, even EC on packaging and packaging waste (EC 2015), and the though they are considered as the most challenging Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of (Papargyropoulou et al. 2014). Also when comparing the the Council amending Directive 1999/31/EC on the landfill European approach with other food waste management of waste (EC 2015). approaches at the global level, such as with the United It is worth noting that in recent years, together with States and Japan, prevention activities are always viewed prevention, re-use and recycle activities promoted by as the most favourable option (see EPA 2014; Yolin 2015). governments and international institutions, a number of In this respect, the establishment of a multi-stakeholder citizens’ initiatives related to collaborative consumption platform dedicated to food waste prevention was have been put in place in industrialized countries. This announced by the European Commission in 20159. type of initiatives included public refrigerators, food- Secondly, re-use activities, through, for example, sharing apps, and initiatives among students (see e.g. food banks and food sharing practices10. Thirdly, recycle Falcone and Imbert 2017; Ferrari 2016). However, the activities that include animal feed (see Salemdeeb et al. relationship between food sharing and reduced food 2017) and composting (by aerobic process). Composting is waste is not a foregone conclusion, as a number of barriers a quite valuable practice from an environmental point of such as the absence of direct social relationships and, view, but it is still scarcely convenient from an economic accordingly, of trust as well as the absence of domestic point of view (Lin et al. 2013); this practice is encouraged skills might affect negatively results on food prevention (Lazell 2016; Morone et al. 2016). Also on the production side, a number of alternative solutions, such as increasing waste with similar biodegradability properties that is comparable in shelf life of fruit and vegetables through innovative nature, composition and quantity. packaging, are being tested (see Gallagher and Mahajan 7 Papargyropoulou et al. (2014) have applied this approach to the 2011; Galgano et al. 2015). specific case of food waste based on environmental and social as- pects. Therefore, the following statements are grounded also on this study. 11 See Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of 8 Available at http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?u the Council amending Directive 2008/98/EC on waste, COM(2015) 595 ri=OJ:L:2008:312:0003:0030:en:PDF. final available at: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/ 9 European Commission Communication 2015, Closing the loop – HTML/?uri=CELEX:52015PC0595&from=EN An EU action plan for the Circular Economy. 12 See Directive 2008/98/EC and Proposal for a Directive of the Eu- 10 Redistribution activities, especially food donation to people in ropean Parliament and of the Council amending Directive 2008/98/ need, are particularly encouraged by the European Union and will EC on waste, COM(2015) 595 final. also be supported by overcoming some regulatory issues, in particu- 13 See https://www.epa.gov/sustainable-management-food/food- lar, through normative simplification (EC 2017). recovery-hierarchy. 198 E. Imbert

Figure 2: Food waste end-of-life different destinations. Note: Plough in/not harvested and land applications have not been included in this figure. Landfill from which gas is recovered have not been considered in this figure.Source: Adapted from FUSIONS, 2016 and Hanson et al. 2016

When prevention, re-use and recycle activities (also and biochemical processing as food waste 18. Also, known as “the 3-Rs”)14 in descending order of preference, incineration plants with high efficiency energy recovery are not feasible, food waste can reach a number of are part of the valorization category (Grosso et al. 2010). potential destinations. These destinations are ranked Despite the ranking of food waste end-of-life different in descending order from the most preferred to the least destinations (Figure 2) offers a useful framework to desirable choice (Figure 2)15 and can be grouped into two establish an order of priority, policy decisions must main categories: recovery/valorization practices, and be integrated also with technical assessments taking disposal/non-valorization practices. into account specific features at the national and local Recovery/valorization practices are aimed at levels. From an environmental point of view, alternative increasing feedstock supply to produce energy and goods food waste valorization practices can be evaluated with and represent the first three steps of Figure 2. Food waste different assessment methods at different levels. While can be either utilized as feedstock for anaerobic digestion quoting a number of studies, Vandermeersch et al. (2014) and co-digestion16 to produce clean and renewable outlined that the approach considered by many as the energy, such as (Zhang et al. 2007; Zhang et al. most valuable is cradle-to-grave through the Life Cycle 2014; Evangelisti et al. 2014), or utilized in Assessment (LCA) methodology, although other methods (Mirabella et al. 2014) to produce bio-based products17 such as Exergetic Life Cycle Assessment (ELCA) should such as , chemical intermediates and composite be taken into account. The importance of adopting life materials such as . It is worth noting that the cycle-based methodologies within the overall food supply EU funded FUSIONS project does not include bio-material

18 On the other hand, it considers bio-energy production through co/anaerobic digestion as waste since it is not considered an efficient 14 Reduce, re-use and recycle. option. Specifically, food and inedible parts of food removed from 15 This is based on the European waste hierarchy and the literature the food supply chain, composted, crops ploughed in/not harvested, (Papargyropoulou et al. 2014; Hanson et al. 2016). anaerobic digestion, bioenergy production, co-generation, incine- 16 Co-digestion is when food waste is combined with other types of ration, disposal to sewer, landfill or discarded to sea is quantified waste (also organic). Often this type of process has advantages both as food waste by FUSIONS, whereas food recovered for material use in terms of quality and reduced costs (see Lin et al. 2011). such as bio-based products, animal feed, or sent for redistribution 17 Bio-based products are commonly defined as products that are are not considered as food waste (see https://www.eu-fusions.org/ wholly or partly derived from biomass. index.php/publications/faq, FUSIONS 2014). Food waste valorization options: opportunities from the bioeconomy 199 chain, together with the methodological challenges has also been identified as a fundamental requirement for that it poses, has been pointed out by the literature (see by the 2015 Paris Agreement23. Notarnicola et al. 2017). In particular, LCA represents The bioeconomy is among the sectors most strongly an effective decision support tool for evaluating and linked to the circular economy. It includes a variety comparing different end-of-life options for food waste, of production activities such as agriculture, forestry, even though a harmonized modelling approach targeted fisheries and aquaculture, food, and pulp and paper for this field needs to be consolidated (Corrado et al. 2017). production, parts of the chemical, biotechnological In particular, according to the European Commission19, and energy industries, and manufacturing of bio-based the LCA allows the identification of selected cases, textiles (Ronzon et al. 2015). The minor environmental characterized by specific local conditions, in which it impact of the bioeconomy is based on the use of renewable becomes more advantageous to deviate from the hierarchy biological resources (biomass) from land and sea, instead ranking, giving priority to lower positioned activities. of fossil fuel-derived feedstocks, to produce food, feed, Moreover, it is worth noting that the waste hierarchy, as energy and bio-based products. stressed by the European Union itself, has to be fulfilled The European bio-economy has a turnover of roughly with a degree of flexibility because socio-economic costs €2 trillion and employs more than 22 million people (EC were not taken into account when designing the ranking 2012). Many countries, both at the European and global order (see Rasmussen et al. 2005; BIS 2015). level, have developed their own bioeconomy strategies According to Eurostat, thanks to the spreading since it is considered a strategic and highly innovative of valorization destinations there has been a strong area. It is estimated that, by 2025, every euro invested improvement in the reduction of the practice of landfilling by the EU in bioeconomy research and innovation could municipal waste in the EU-27, despite increased levels of generate 10 euros of added value in the bioeconomy (EC waste; the landfilling rate has dropped from 63.8% in 1995 2012). to 25.3% in 2015. For example, “the recovery of organic The “”, as defined by IEA Bioenergy material by composting has grown with an average annual Task 42, “is the sustainable processing of biomass into a rate of 5.4 % from 1995 to 2015”20. spectrum of marketable products and energy”; this means that it can be a facility, a process, a plant, or even a cluster of facilities (de Jong and Jungmeier 2015: 5). This is not a 4 Food waste management: chal- completely new concept, since biomass has always been lenges from the bioeconomy and used; however, advanced biorefineries employ innovative and green technologies to produce new types of products. the circular economy At the same time, the adoption of these lower polluting technologies creates economic benefits such as new Sustainable development has gained an increasingly employment creation, as well as social benefits such as central role in the global agenda and is now based on increased public health (see Bourguignon 2017). In recent a circular economy model. The circular economy is years, attention has shifted to second generation biomass grounded on resource efficiency, waste reduction, recycle composed of secondary feedstock instead of dedicated and valorization21. “Food waste is a key area in the circular crops, and includes a variety of waste streams such as economy” (EC 2017), and is considered as an under- food waste (see OECD 2014; BIS 2015) that can be used to utilized resource that can be brought into use. The circular produce high value chemical products (Pfaltzgraff et al. economy creates more employment with fewer resources 2013; Lin et al., 2013. These types of raw materials do (Mitchell and James 2015), and is strongly related to not compete with food production which has been one sustainable consumption and production, i.e. Goal n.12 of of the most debated and criticized issues related to the the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development22, which bioeconomy (Scarlat et al. 2015). However, the production of energy and biomaterials 19 http://ec.europa.eu/environment/waste/publications/pdf/Ma- from food waste is at an early stage of development. There king_Sust_Consumption.pdf. is a strong need to reduce uncertainty and encourage 20 http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/ Municipal_waste_statistics. 21 In 2015, the European Union adopted the circular economy pa- ce food losses along production and supply chains, including post- ckage, which is strongly linked with EU’s climate and energy strategy. harvest losses”. 22 In particular SDG target 12.3, which states: “By 2030, halve per 23 See https://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2015/cop21/eng/l09r01. capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and redu- pdf. 200 E. Imbert investment by increasing transparency (Kretschmer 2. Low coordination of the different sources of food waste et al. 2013), first, by providing precise information on (such as distributors, retailers, cafes, restaurants, the availability of food waste and by ensuring a lower schools, hospitals and households); environmental impact of bioenergy and biomaterials; this 3. Infrastructural and storage limitations, also because should not be taken for granted. Indeed, comparability food waste decomposes rapidly; of bio-based products versus fossil-based alternatives 4. Market demand of bio-based products, which strongly is a key issue. Sustainability assessment needs to be depends on policy actions such as a more adequate further investigated through Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), legislative support and higher public awareness; complemented by Life Cycle Costing (LCC), and Social 5. Economic viability of the plants and technological Life Assessment (S-LCA) since also economic and social limitations. aspects should be taken into consideration. In Figure 3, we report findings from a SWOT analysis These points show that one of the central factors is public conducted by Kretschmer et al. (2013), summarizing the awareness as a basis for increased demand of bio-based most relevant critical issues, as well as the advantages products (see de Besi and McCormick 2015) since they are associated with the development of this sector. Indeed, still more expensive compared to traditional ones. The the implementation on a larger scale of biorefining from assessment through the life cycle approach will make food waste will depend, as stressed by the literature (Lin clear the benefits of bio-based products to policymakers et al. 2011; Kretschmer et al. 2013), on overcoming the as well as to citizens as the transition to more sustainable following factors: circular models will not be possible without a strong 1. Too high variety of quality and volume of food waste. public consensus. This strongly depends on a separate food waste collection that, albeit increasing, still needs significant improvements in quality as well as quantity;

Figure 3: Main Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats facing the use of food waste and crop and forestry residues for material and energy substitution in Europe. Source: Kretschmer et al. 2013 Food waste valorization options: opportunities from the bioeconomy 201

5 Conclusions streams (Vandermeersch et al. 2014; Eriksson et al. 2015). Overall, the bio-economy and the circular economic An increased population needs higher levels of energy, model represent a great opportunity for tackling the food food and goods; however, natural resources are limited waste issue, especially in medium-high income countries and the current production system is highly polluting. In where the bulk of the problem is associated with miss- such a complex context, the loss or waste of about one- consumption behaviours occurring at the end of the third (1.3 billion tonnes a year) of all food produced for food supply chain. However, this transition needs to be human consumption (Gustavsson et al. 2011) is no longer accompanied by public policies. Demand and supply side acceptable, not only for social reasons, considering polices are crucial for pushing out emerging sectors such as the implications on food security, but also for the costs the bioeconomy. It is worth noting that two of the European associated with its economic and environmental impact countries where the bioeconomy has surged ahead - i.e. (Falcone and Imbert 2017). According to the EPA (2016), Germany and Italy - have developed somehow alternative food waste is the second largest contributor, after paper approaches. Indeed, Germany has experimented supply- and paperboard, of (MSW) in the side policies through R&D investments, whereas Italy United States24. has mostly encourage market uptake policies for several Efforts to reach the UN’s target of halving avoidable bio-based products – such as bioplastics and second food waste by 2030 are needed on the part of both the generation biofuels (Imbert et al. 2017). However, there consumption and production side (e.g. by implementing is no “one-size-fits-all” policy tailored to meet countries’ innovative solutions to extend product lifespans) as regional and local needs. Indeed, in recent years there has food waste needs to be tackled at all stages of the food been an increased interest in the policy mix (see Veugelers supply chain. The circular economy package, adopted 2012; Quitzow 2015) for promoting sustainability by the European Commission in 2015, supports European transitions. This type of approach can provide effective countries in a more efficient and lasting use of resources, guidance to policy makers ensuring the basis for a further which can also create new job opportunities. It devotes development of the sector. an important part to more effective waste management through revised legislative proposals on waste in order to achieve more ambitious results. References The waste hierarchy, and in particular the food waste Adhikari B.K., Barrington S., Martinez J., Predicted growth of world hierarchy analysed in this paper, offers a framework on urban food waste and methane production. 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