Application of the "Distance to Target" Approach to the Multiobjective Optimization of Nutritional and Economic Costs due to Food Loss and Waste

Since about one third of all food produced worldwide is lost or wasted throughout the supply chain, measures to reduce food loss and waste (FLW) must be fostered to meet the increasing challenge of sustainable feeding of the world's population. In addition to the minimization of the total amount of FLW, two additional relevant aspects must be taken into account: the nutritional and economic costs caused by these losses. This point of view defines a more complex scenario with multiple sustainability targets, with different minimization objectives. A "distance to target" approach, based on the definition of a normalized weighted distance, has been selected to provide practical and effective optimization guidelines by measuring the magnitude towards the quantitative sustainable targets in the minimization of economic and nutritional costs associated to FLW. The results revealed that vegetables were the food category that showed the worst performance in terms of nutritional and economic costs due to the great amount of loss and waste generated, which highlights the importance of providing measures in this category.