Visual quality and waste of leafy vegetables in the retail market

ABSTRACT Food waste at retail and consumer level is estimated by the United Nations to be around 17% of total global food production. From that, 2% is believed to happen in retail. However, this estimate has a great degree of uncertainty due to the very small data set on which it was built, coming almost exclusively from high income countries. The present research contributes to fill this gap, presenting primary data on waste of leafy vegetables at two supermarket chains in Federal District, Brazil. Both studies evaluated: 1) number of produce items delivered and discarded; 2) visual quality of produce at reception and 3) cause of discard. The majority of the produce, 37 out of 47, had more than 80% of the units with good visual quality, but this frequency varied from 62.0 to 88.4% among stores and from 56.0 to 97.1% among suppliers. Within a global waste equal to 20.0%, the amount observed for individual produce ranged from 1.0 to 83.0% and varied considerably across stores and suppliers. The presence of wilt- rotten and yellow- wilt- rotten leaves were the first and second main causes of discard. Vegetable waste at retail level in an upper middle-income country such as Brazil can be substantial, supporting the recent change in narrative that now considers food waste to be relevant in all countries, regardless of its income.

摘要：据联合国估算，全球零售与消费者层面的食物浪费约占全球粮食总产量的17%，其中据信有2%发生在零售环节。然而，由于该估算所依托的数据集规模极小，且数据几乎全部来自高收入国家，因此其不确定性较高。本研究旨在填补这一研究空白，提供了巴西联邦特区两家连锁超市叶类农产品浪费情况的一手数据（primary data）。针对这两家超市的两项调研均涵盖以下内容：1）交付与丢弃的农产品数量；2）收货时农产品的视觉品质；3）农产品丢弃的原因。在47种农产品中，有37种的合格视觉品质单元占比超过80%，但各门店间的合格占比波动区间为62.0%至88.4%，供应商间则为56.0%至97.1%。在整体浪费率为20.0%的前提下，单种农产品的浪费率介于1.0%至83.0%之间，且在不同门店与供应商间存在显著差异。叶片萎蔫腐烂与泛黄萎蔫腐烂是位列前两位的主要丢弃原因。在巴西这类中高收入国家，零售层面的蔬菜浪费现象可能相当严重，这佐证了近来的观点转变：即无论国家收入水平如何，食物浪费在所有国家都具有重要意义。