The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) reported that approximately one-third of all produced foods (1.3 billion tons of edible food) for human consumption is lost and wasted every year across the entire supply chain. Significant impacts of food loss and waste (FLW) have increased interest in establishing prevention programs around the world. This paper aims to provide an overview of FLW occurrence and prevention. Economic, political, cultural, and socio-demographic drivers of FLW are described, highlighting the global variation. This approach might be particularly helpful for scientists, governors, and policy makers to identify the global variation and to focus on future implications. The main focus here was to identify the cause of the FLW occurrence throughout the food supply chain. We have created a framework for FLW occurrence at each stage of the food supply chain. Several feasible solutions are provided based on the framework.

Despite active international efforts to reduce food waste, there are only a few academic researches and policy movements in Korea. One of the many causes of this is the lack of relevant statistics on household food waste behaviors. This study is the first comprehensive study on the food waste behaviors of Korean households and determinants, providing, based on the analysis of the first representative national-level household survey, useful insights and policy implications for countries with a similar environment and situation to Korea. This study found that approximately 63% of households discharge food waste of less than 500 g a day, and the amount varies by region significantly, implying a potential possibility of food waste reduction by regionally differentiated strategies. It is also found that the amount of food waste is on the rise in Korea, and the most widely used volume-rate disposal system in Korea is public food waste collection boxes (29.44%). Regression analyses indicate that policy efforts should focus on raising awareness of the importance of reducing food waste; for example, by promoting campaigns to encourage desirable food purchases, implementing dietary education, and discovering an optimal volume-rate disposal system that is regionally specific. This study suggest that the Korean government should actively participate in international efforts, establish an integrated system in which stakeholders and policy makers can cooperate, develop indicators and set targets for food waste reduction, and encourage diverse implementation to develop policies tailored to domestic and regional environments.

This study aims to identify the regions and people with low food access (LFA) for Korea at the national level and to examine disparities in food consumption, dietary behavior, and health outcome for those regions and people. Based on the distance to the nearest grocery store from residence, the regions and people with LFA are identified through geographical information system (GIS) analysis. To examine disparities between the regions and people with LFA and without LFA, a consumer survey is conducted and data from National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and Community Health Survey are analyzed. This study found that there exists a serious access to food issue in Korea, especially for the aged. Moreover, there also exist significant disparities between the regions and people with and without LFA in the distance and one-way travel time to the grocery store that is mainly visited, frequency of offline/online grocery shopping, availability of various foods, dietary habits such as eating regularly, eating nutritionally balanced foods, and eating sufficient fruit/vegetable/whole grains, the acquisition and utilization of food-related information, and health outcomes. This study suggests that, to resolve such a serious food access problem, assistance policies, such as mobile grocery stores and lunch-box delivery, need to be activated in countries similar to Korea since this problem could potentially deteriorate the national medical finances as well as the regional and individual disparities.

Crowding out of private stocks by public stocks | Sanghyo Kim, Carl Zulauf | Agricultural Journals

Introduction: Rapid population aging presents significant nutritional challenges for older adults, as physiological declines often lead to malnutrition and reduced quality of life. While senior-friendly diets have been developed to accommodate these needs, their broader economic and welfare impacts remain under-researched. Methods: To address this gap, a randomized two-period crossover intervention study was conducted with community-dwelling older adults at a welfare center in South Korea. Participants received either a senior-friendly diet or a standard diet for ten weeks before switching conditions after a one-week washout period. Using individual fixed-effects models as the primary analysis and difference-in-differences models as a robustness check, changes in utility weights and quality-adjusted life expectancy were analyzed. Results: The results demonstrated that consuming the senior-friendly diet led to statistically significant improvements in both utility weights and quality-adjusted life expectancy. These overall gains were primarily driven by significant enhancements in physical functioning, specifically in mobility, self-care, usual activities, and the reduction of pain and discomfort. Discussion: These findings suggest that senior-friendly dietary interventions may improve physical health and quality-adjusted life expectancy among older adults in community-based welfare settings, though further research with larger and more diverse samples is needed to assess the generalizability of these effects.