Revolutionizing the supply chain: Cutting-edge strategies and technologies for food waste reduction

Abstract

Food waste has significant environmental, economic, and social impacts. Here we review the principal reasons and impacts of food waste while presenting what has been done to reduce it nowadays. We also suggest new strategies and technologies that should be prioritized for a better future tomorrow. The paper reviews innovative packaging concepts and active and intelligent systems to improve food preservation, such as modified atmosphere packaging, antimicrobial coatings for isolation of bio-pathogenic or exhaust gas treatment from perishable products storage areas, control of the diffusion mechanism in biopolymer stages critical principles embedding multiple antioxidative compounds with encapsulation technology and antioxidant. Case studies show results achieved by applying the techniques described so far. The review also confers fresh strategies innovators employ to prevent waste and developments in data analytics and AI-driven tracking and measurement technologies. It ends with assessing what working models are effective and explores the ground challenges and the potential for scaling these solutions in a circular economy. The broadness of this review has been purposely designed to provide a detailed resource that could pave the way to providing better sustainability and reducing food waste across different sectors.