Food waste interventions in low-and-middle-income countries: A systematic literature review

Summary

This systematic review of 8318 studies examines food waste reduction interventions in low- and middle-income countries, revealing critical fragmentation in the evidence base. Preventive interventions are concentrated only at production, storage and transportation stages, whilst mitigative approaches appear exclusively at wholesale and consumption stages, with no studies integrating both strategies. The review identifies a pronounced research bias towards material-based solutions, with insufficient exploration of knowledge-based alternatives or local capacity-building approaches.

UK applicability

Whilst this review focuses on LMICs, the identified evidence gaps—particularly the disconnect between prevention and mitigation strategies and the under-investigation of knowledge-based interventions—may be relevant to UK food waste policy, which has tended to emphasise downstream consumer-facing campaigns over upstream prevention. UK supply chain actors could benefit from integrated approaches combining prevention and mitigation across value chain stages.

Key measures

Classification of interventions by value chain stage (production, storage, transportation, wholesale, consumption); classification by mechanism (prevention versus mitigation: recycling, reuse, remanufacture, repurposing, recovery); literature bias patterns towards material-based versus knowledge-based interventions

Outcomes reported

The systematic review identified and classified food waste reduction interventions across value chain stages in LMICs, categorising them by mechanism of action (preventive versus mitigative) and target stage. The study assessed the evidence base for intervention efficacy and identified key gaps in the literature regarding integrated approaches and knowledge-based solutions.

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