Quantifying supply chain food loss in China with primary data: A large-scale, field-survey based analysis for staple food, vegetables, and fruits

Abstract Food loss has been widely identified as a key barrier to food security and environmental sustainability in developing countries. However, there remains a lack of empirical studies on the scales and patterns of food loss along the food supply chain in developing countries especially with updated and primary data. In this study, we aim to address this significant gap for China, based on a large-scale field study with questionnaire survey and qualitative interview of 1809 farmer households in 35 major agricultural producing counties of 12 provinces across China between April 2017 and September 2019. Three main agricultural products, staple food, vegetables, and fruits, and their entire supply chain from agricultural production to post-harvest handling, storage, processing, and distribution were covered. The normalized total losses of staple food, vegetables, and fruits added up to 7.9%, 27.7%, and 13.2%, respectively, of their total production. The major loss of staple food occurs at production stage, while post-harvest handling stage and distribution stage, respectively, contribute the most to vegetables and fruits losses. Although China's leapfrogging progress and technology development in recent years have resulted in a reduction of food loss, it was estimated that between 40% and 60% of these losses can still be further mitigated. Such primary data could improve our understanding on the scales and patterns of supply chain food losses in China and thus better inform food loss reduction interventions and associated economic and environmental mitigation strategies.