Yes / The issues of food loss and waste (FLW) in the global supply chains have recently attracted attention. However, the causes of and strategies for mitigating FLW at different stages of the supply chains remain under researched. Our research aims to address these gaps in knowledge in a three-fold way: i) we identified the key causes (through root-cause analysis) of FLW in the supply chain of developed and less developed countries; ii) we systematically classified measures and policies that have been implemented to mitigate FLW; and iii) we developed an interdisciplinary conceptual framework for waste utilisation practices that can contribute towards the triple bottom-line in food systems. A root-cause analysis was performed and mitigation strategies identified by systematically analysing and synthesising the research published over the past 20 years (1998 to 2018) in the areas of FLW in the supply chain. We propose a conceptual model for the prevention of FLW utilising a systems approach through the concept of a circular economy. Since the agri-food sector is largely interdisciplinary, in our proposed model, we have also demonstrated a method of integrating contributions from multiple disciplines towards achieving total depollution (zero waste) in the supply chain. / Support provided by the British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grant, Reference No: SG160072, for the development of the study.

Yes / Purpose: this paper presents notable themes regarding the relationship between sustainability development and the food loss issue. In doing so, it provides coherent knowledge concerning this global problem and highlights the key research areas in this context. Design/methodology/approach: this paper is a viewpoint piece; normative literature and supposition are used to orientate the views of the authors. Findings: this paper has identified the main causes of food loss at each stage of the food supply chain. It has then classified the causes into three groups based on organisational environment: internal causes, micro-environmental causes and macro-environmental causes. In addition, the authors suggest a need to adopt a holistic view of the performance measurement system in the food industry through incorporating sustainability pillars with traditional performance perspectives in the context of food loss. Practical implications: food loss generating from various causes along the supply chain means that more food should flow across the supply chains to reach consumers’ homes. This paper provides reassuring insights that will help the decision-makers in food companies to revise the performance measurement system in the context of food loss reduction. Social implications: reducing food loss will contribute to increasing food availability and decreasing food prices, which leads to strengthening economic and physical access for those people who are not able to get food. Consequently, it considers a mandatory step to enhance food security. Originality/value: to raise the significance of food loss reduction along the supply chain and to stress an urgent need to adopt a holistic view of the sustainability performance measurement system with a particular focus on the food loss issue.

Yes / Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the use, applicability and relevance of strategic planning as a process and tool when applied to exploring food security challenges, in the context of existing research on food security and food waste in the food supply chain. The issues associated with robust and resilient food supply chains within a circular economy are increasingly being seen as supportive of creating enhanced levels of food security but the authors argue that this is only sustainable when strategically planned as part of a cross-enterprise, information-rich and complex supply chain. The relevance of the Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal and Environmental (PESTLE) strategic planning tool is explored to establish whether it can play a role tacking the complexity of food insecurity (i.e. a lack of food security). Design/methodology/approach – This is a viewpoint piece therefore as a result, thought, normative literature and supposition are used as a means to ground and orientate the views of the authors. Findings – The authors identify and conclude that strategic planning tools like PESTLE across enterprises may not be relevant in supporting the reduction of food insecurity. This conclusion is predicated on the heightened level of complexity surrounding the pursuit of food security and the simplistic categorisation of PESTLE factors in a linear fashion that underpin this tool. Rather, the authors’ call for the use of strategic planning tools that are able to capture a large number of inter-related factors holistically. Practical implications – This insight to the inter-related factors that contribute to food insecurity will allow policy developers, decision makers and others to develop their understanding of how strategic planning can support increased levels of food security within a circular economy and across cross-enterprises. Originality/value – The authors contribute to the literature through a new insight of how normative strategic planning tools need to evolve in a complex, inter-connected world of international business and geo-politics. In doing so, it is expected that this research will motivate others to develop their line of enquiry around uncovering and exploring those inter-relationships connecting PESTLE factors.

Anaerobic digestion (AD) is becoming a widely adopted technology for conversion of organic waste and nutrient-rich fertiliser production due to its cost-effectiveness and sustainability. In this study, a batch experiment was conducted using five different types of food waste and cow dung (CD). No significant difference was observed among the four substrates that produced the highest methane (P<0.05). Based on the batch experiment results, two substrates were selected for semi-continuous digestion and the highest methane yield (67%) was obtained from co-digestion (CO). PCR-DGGE results revealed higher bacterial and archaeal diversity indices in CO as compared to mono-digestion of CD and mixed food waste. The high-throughput sequence analyses revealed that the Operational Taxonomic Units (OTUs) belonging to the phyla Bacteroidetes, followed by Firmicutes, Actinobacteria and Proteobacteria, were dominant in all treatments. The enhanced methane production in CO could be attributed to the neutral pH and partial shift of archaea from Methanosaeta to Methanosarcina. The digestate and fresh CD were screened for plant growth promoting bacteria (PGPB), nutrient and heavy metal content. The dung contained higher concentrations of heavy metals (P<0.05) and potential pathogens in comparison to the digestate. The use of digestate may, therefore, enhance soil fertility with minimal negative environmental effects. / School of Agriculture and Life Sciences / M. Sc. (Life Sciences)

Household food waste levels pose a considerable problem in terms of sustainability. Food stock management applications for smartphones are interventions that support people in planning and keeping an overview of their food stock in order to reduce food waste. So far mainly their usability and effectiveness for reduction of food waste have been researched in HCI. This study aimed at investigating how these applications are being integrated into people’s food practices, and how their features contributed to the integration. In a three-week long field study seven participants used one of two applications in their daily lives. Through interviews and diary entries it was observed that some people integrated the applications into their food practices to replace other actions like checking one’s food stock. New connections to the food practices were created through expiration reminders and providing means to check the food stock from a distance. Reminders were seen as helpful even if not always necessary and can be seen as an opportunity to further support the integration process. The main issues for the integration were the high-effort adding processes and remembering to update the inventory after consumption.

published_or_final_version / Environmental Management / Master / Master of Science in Environmental Management

The globalized food system poses many systemic challenges that have significant impacts on the environment and human health. In order to tackle these challenges, especially those relating to climate change, it is assumed that consumers need to be accountable for the role they play in these issues, requiring them to alter their harmful consumption habits. In terms of the food system, this means that people need to evolve into ethical consumers and become more invested in what and how much they eat, where it comes from, etc . However, throughout the literature and in policies, there remains a focus on altering what people buy, rather than reducing waste from their overconsumption. Reducing waste and consumption would have a more beneficial impact for the environment, human health, and urban sustainability, yet it remains secondary to the narrative of buying sustainable alternatives. A waste reduction narrative would encourage sustainable behaviours that would also be more accessible to households of various socioeconomic backgrounds, and would provide more tangible results in terms of money saved, reduced greenhouse gases and waste output, and increased sustainability. However, food consumption is the result of many ingrained daily food practices influenced by a multitude of factors that prevent people from consciously considering the consequences of their actions. Food consumption and waste management as a phenomenon can therefore be interpreted using Social Practice Theory (SPT), which states that all humans act autonomously and according to social norms. This means that practices are recursive and routinized, subject to change, yet somewhat unconscious. All practices lead to consumption in some way, and changing such deeply embedded routines to become more sustainable requires a full understanding of these deeply entrenched practices. Practices can be broken down into three main components that drive how practices are formed and maintained:materials, competences, and meanings. This project uses mini-ethnographic studies to highlight SPT in order to understand the factors (contextual, materials, competences, and meanings) influencing households in Edmonton, Canada as they navigate the current sustainability narrative, and how they approach sustainable food consumption and food waste management. The results from this study lend some insight into what materials, competences, meanings, and other factors drive people already somewhat aware of sustainable food consumption issues to practice such types of behaviour. These influential elements have been found in many other recently published works, and give further insight into how broad external factors and specific internal factors can drive consumption practices. Prevention and reduction behaviours were already somewhat prevalent in this group. It is important that education programs targeting sustainable food consumption behaviours understand what drives certain food related practices, and how they can target the barriers that prevent certain groups of people from adopting more sustainable habits.

The use of visual data representation is increasing the possibilities to exchange information and communicate indifferent contexts all over the world. Communicating food wastage visually to influence consuming patterns isone of these possibilities. Food wastage is currently a much-prioritized topic in Sweden as well as globally due toits negative impacts on society, environment and the economy, and therefore there is much need to bringinnovative solutions supporting reduction of food waste. This thesis presents a qualitative research based on a casestudy of food waste management at Sala municipality in Sweden while exploring the current visual datarepresentation techniques and its further potential to make food waste management more sustainable. The researchframework used in this thesis is based on visual rhetoric and the innovation theories. The thesis analyzes foodwastage from an international perspective, its connection to sustainable development goals and how MatomaticAB uses a visual data representation tool to address food wastage.The thesis further explains how the users associated with Sala municipality interpret the existing tool, thechallenges they face and review their expectations to build a new visual data representation model. The results ofquestionnaires filled by user’s, state that 50% of the respondents understand the current tool to its full capacityand only 50% of the respondents are satisfied with the overall tool. When it comes to the choice of datapresentation 67% of the users showed interest in use of infographics instead of the conventional bar graphs, andtherefore some parameters like, making the tool more interesting using infographics, user friendly by limiting thedata displayed and interactive by giving user options to explore further as per their liking, were thought whiledesigning the new visual data representation model.

Currently Vietnam is facing several problems with waste handling. For instance, a lot of the municipal organic solid waste is dumped at landfills, which contributes to environmental difficulties such as greenhouse gas emissions. Anaerobic digestion has proven to be an adequate method for solving environmental problems such as waste treatment, where biogas can be produced. The methane content in the biogas can subsequently be used as a prosperous energy source for heating, electricity and vehicle fuel. The production and utilization of biogas in Vietnam is in a developing face. However, there are issues that should be tackled to improve and expand the biogas production and use. In Vietnam the main substrate used for anaerobic digestion is animal manure as most of the biogas digesters are placed on farms. The purpose of this master thesis was to identify additional potential substrates for biogas production, with focus on Thái Nguyên city and Sông Công city in the Thái Nguyên province. In order to find suitable substrates, interviews and literature research were carried out in Vietnam. Subsequently biochemical methane potential (BMP) tests were performed for the identified and acquired substrates. The BMP-tests were first performed at Thái Nguyên University but as the results were inconclusive, further experiments were performed at Linköping University (Sweden) where eight substrates from the Thái Nguyên province were investigated. The identified substrates used for the BMP-tests were three types of beer waste from the Vicoba brewery in Thái Nguyên city, food waste from different restaurants in Sông Công city, fruit waste from the fruit market in Thái Nguyên and household vegetable waste. The highest methane yield could be observed for household vegetable waste (543 Nml/g VS) followed by beer waste (yeast) with a methane potential of 497 Nml/g VS. Beer waste (hops boiling) had the lowest methane potential with a value of 230 Nml/g VS. Estimation of the total methane potential in both cities together from food waste from restaurants, beer waste and sewage sludge from the upcoming waste water treatment plant (WWTP) in Thái Nguyen city were made by combining data from interviews, literature values and the BMP-results. The estimation showed that from Thái Nguyên City and Sông Công city about 137,500 m3 CH4/year can be produced from food waste from restaurants, about 1.7 millionCH4 m3/year can be produced from sludge from the WWTP in Thái Nguyên city (under construction) and there is also a possibility to produce about 10,700 m3 CH4/year from the beer brewery in Thái Nguyên city. Thus, the total estimated methane potential sums up to 1.8 million m3 CH4/year. The results show that Thái Nguyên city and Sông Công city have potential wastes that preferably could be used as substrates for biogas production which could add on to the biogas produced currently at farm level in the Thái Nguyên region. / I dagsläget står Vietnam inför svåra problem med rådande avfallshantering. En stor del av det organiska avfallet deponeras. Detta bidrar till miljöproblem som exempelvis utsläpp av växthusgaser. Kontrollerad rötning har visat sig vara en bra metod för avfallshantering av organiskt avfall, eftersom biogasen som produceras exempelvis kan användas som energikälla för matlagning, elektricitet och fordonsbränsle, samtidigt som avfallsmängden kraftigt reduceras. Utvecklingen av kommersiell biogasproduktion i Vietnam är fortfarande i ett inledande stadie. De främsta substraten för biogassubstratet som används i landet i nuläget är olika typer av gödsel med anledning av att de flesta rötkammare är placerade på bondgårdar. Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka kompletterande potentiella substrat som kan användas för biogasproduktion i städerna Thái Nguyên och Sông Công som är belägna i provinsen Thái Nguyên. För att identifiera möjliga biogassubstrat genomfördes intervjuer på plats tillsammans med litteraturundersökningar. Vidare genomfördes metanpotentialbestämningar (BMP) för identifierade, utvalda och, erhållna substrat. Det visade sig ej vara möjligt inom tidsramen för besöket att genomföra BMP-testerna på ett fullgott sätt vid Thái Nguyêns universitet med anledning av begränsningar i metodförutsättningar, varför BMP-tester även genomfördes på Linköpings universitet. Totalt testades metanpotentialen för åtta olika substrat från städerna Thái Nguyên och Sông Công. De identifierade substraten som användes i BMP-studien var tre typer av bryggeriavfall från Vicoba bryggeri i Thái Nguyên, matavfall från olika restauranger i Sông Công, fruktavfall från fruktmarknaden i Thái Nguyên och hushållsavfall från ett hushåll i Thái Nguyên. Det högsta metanutbytet kunde observeras för matavfall från hushåll (543 Nml/g VS) följt av bryggeriavfall i form av jäst (497 Nml/g VS). Ölavfall från vörtkokning påvisade det lägsta metanutbytet av samtliga testade substrat motsvarande 230 Nml/g VS. En uppskattning av den totala metanpotentialen i de båda städerna från matavfall från restauranger, bryggeriavfall samt avloppsslam från reningsverket som är under uppbyggnad i Thái Nguyên genomfördes baserat på intervjuer, litteraturvärden samt genomförda metanpotentialtester (BMP). Uppskattningen visade att cirka 137 500 m3 CH4/år skulle kunna produceras från matavfall från restauranger, cirka 1,7 miljoner CH4 m3/år från avloppsreningsverksslam samt från ölbryggeriet i Thái Nguyên är det möjligt att producera cirka 10 700 CH4 m3/år. Sammantaget indikerar det en uppskattad metanpotential motsvarande ca 1,8 miljoner CH4 m3/år. Slutsatsen av den här studien visar att det finns stor potential för biogasproduktion i Thái Nguyên och Sông Công. / Developing strategies and methods for participatory planning in Thái Nguyên and Linköping

Matsvinn är ett aktuellt ämne och mycket arbete utförs för att på olika sätt hantera följder av detta. Syftet med denna studie är att studera problemen angående matsvinn utifrån ett lean management perspektiv. Studien är avgränsad till ”ICA nära Bredaryds” kött- och charkavdelning. Genom att identifiera de bakomliggande orsakerna till matsvinn samt undersöka hur grundläggande principer inom lean kan hantera dessa, försöker studien forma långsiktiga strategier i syfte att minska matsvinnet i livsmedelsbutiker.De två huvudorsakerna till matsvinnet som identifierats i studien är variation i kundernas efterfrågan samt variation i personalens arbetsmoment. För att hantera variationen i kundernas efterfrågan bör tankesättet “lean thinking” implementeras. Genom att arbeta med “lean thinking”-cykeln och kontinuerligt eliminera slöseri samt utveckla systemet så att det blir av dragande karaktär kommer kundernas variation att delvis kunna hanteras vilket i sin tur minskar matsvinnet. För att hantera variationen i arbetsmomenten bör standardiserade arbetssätt implementeras. Då all personal arbetar på samma sätt kommer variationen i utförandet av olika arbetsmoment att minska vilket i sin tur genererar ett minskat matsvinn.Nyckelord: Lean, / Food waste is today a subject of large interest and a lot of work is currently being done to handle this issue. The aim of this study is therefore to give a contribution to the problem solving in this area from a lean management perspective. The study is limited to “ICA nära Bredaryds” department for cured meat and provisions. By identifying the underlying issues of food waste in connection with investigating how lean principles can handle these, the study aims to form long-term and strategic solutions on how to minimize waste in food shops.The two main causes of food waste that have been identified in the study are the variation in customer demand and the variation in how the staff perform their work. In order for the food shop to handle these two problems, two solutions have been suggested. In order to handle the variation in demand, the mindset of lean thinking should be implemented. By working with the lean thinking cycle and continuously eliminating waste and at the same time develop a pull system the variation in demand can be handled, which in turn will reduce the food waste. To handle the variation in workflow, standardized work methods should be implemented. Directing the staff to work the same way will reduce the variation in how the work is performed, which in turn will generate reduced food waste.