Food loss and waste in the Brazilian beef supply chain: an empirical analysis

• Published date: 06 October 2020
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJLM-01-2020-0038
• Date: 06 October 2020
• Pages: 214-236
• Subject Matter: Management science & operations,Logistics
• Author: Vanessa S.M. Magalhães,Luís Miguel D.F. Ferreira,Aldara da Silva César,Renato Manzini Bonfim,Cristóvão Silva

Food loss and waste in the

Brazilian beef supply chain:

an empirical analysis

Vanessa S.M. Magalh~

aes and Lu

ıs Miguel D.F. Ferreira

Univ Coimbra, CEMMPRE, Department of Mechanical Engineering,

Coimbra, Portugal

Aldara da Silva C

esar

Fluminense Federal University, Agribusiness Engineering Department,

Volta Redonda, Brazil

Renato Manzini Bonfim

Embrapa Food and Territories, Macei

o/AL, Brazil, and

Crist

ov~

ao Silva

Univ Coimbra, CEMMPRE, Department of Mechanical Engineering,

Coimbra, Portugal

Abstract

Purpose –The livestock sector contributes significantly to the Brazilian economy, but also creates many

environmental and social issues. To mitigate these problems and help counteract the effects of the growing

production demand, it is essential to address the prevention of food loss and waste (FLW). Therefore, the aim of

the present study is to identify the causes of FLW, model their interrelationships and determine their root

causes for the Brazilian beef supply chain (SC).

Design/methodology/approach –16 causes are analysed using an integrated interpretive structural

modelling (ISM) and matrix impact of cross-multiplication applied to classification (MICMAC) methodology.

ISM identified interrelationships among the causes and MICMAC determined the root causes of FLW.

Findings –The ISM highlights the “Lack of transportation infrastructures”,“Inadequate handling”,“Poor

operational performance”,“Variety of products available in supermarkets”and “Unhealthy animals and

outbreaks of disease”as the most influential causesand the MICMAC classifies them as the root causes of FLW

in the Brazilian beef SC.

Practical implications –The results provide fundamental insights for researchers, practitioners and

policymakers, by exploring which causes are more influential and which are the root causes, thereby assisting

the SC members in the definition of suitable strategies to mitigate FLW.

Originality/value–This is the first empirical analysis of the interdependencies between the causes of FLW in

the beef SC.

Keywords Food wastage, Root causes, Meat, ISM methodology, MICMAC analysis, Brazil

Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction

One-third of the food produced globally for human consumption is lost within the supply

chain (SC) or wasted at the consumer end and is worth around US$ 680bn per year in

developed countries and approximately US$ 310bn per year in developing ones (Mishra and

Singh, 2018). In Latin America alone, over 127m tonnes of food (from which 20% corresponds

to meat) are lost or wasted each year, which would be enough to satisfy the dietary

IJLM

32,1

214

This research is sponsored by FEDER funds through the programme COMPETE –Programa

Operacional Factores de Competitividade –and by national funds through FCT –Fundaç~

ao para a

Ci^

encia e a Tecnologia –under the project UIDB/00285/2020 and the grant SFRH/BD/132563/2017.

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/0957-4093.htm

Received 28 January 2020

Revised 29 June 2020

22 August 2020

Accepted 7 September 2020

The International Journal of

Logistics Management

Vol. 32 No. 1, 2021

pp. 214-236

© Emerald Publishing Limited

0957-4093

DOI 10.1108/IJLM-01-2020-0038

requirements of 300m people (FAO, 2016). The food loss and waste (FLW) problem started

drawing attention on the various media outlets recently, but there are few data, figures and

relevant information available on FLW, as well as few scientific publications for developing

countries (Chen et al., 2017), particularly regarding the BRIC economies (Xue et al., 2017).

FLW has been given more attention worldwide. However, there is still not a unique

definition and, consequently, a unique standard method to quantify it (Lemaire and

Limbourg, 2019). There is, however, an agreement in the literature concerning the urgency to

study and tackle the FLW problem, especially knowing the negative impact it can have on

human health and on the quality of the environment (soil, water, air and landscapes) (Neff

et al., 2015;Ferreira et al., 2018). For the purpose of this study, the term FLW will be used to

address all food intended for human consumption discarded along the food SC. Many Latin

American countries, namely Brazil, have acknowledged the need to combat FLW and have

adhered to the UN’s 2030 Agenda (United Nations, 2015). Yet, Brazil struggles to

simultaneously reduce FLW, promote SC sustainability and ensure food security, due to

the repeated economic and social crises and to its heterogeneous society with significant

inequalities in incomes (Henz and Porpino, 2017). In 2013, Brazil lost 26.3m tons of food from

the 268.1 available (nearly 10% of the total food available) (CAISAN, 2018). However, another

study states that FLW in Brazil may be as high as 42% (Dal’Magro and Talamini, 2019),

denoting the need for a standard method to quantify it. Despite being a major player in world

food production, Brazil is supposedly amongst the ten nations that waste the most food

(Moura et al., 2013). This concern is even more pressing in the livestock sector, given that “if

the world remains on course to roughly double meat and dairy consumption relative to 2000

levels by mid-century, livestock production will continue to industrialize and expand”

(Cassou, 2018), and this level of FLW goes directly against the improvements necessary in

SCs to deal with the probable future needs of feeding the world.

Some reports in the literature point out the importance that the livestock production plays

in the FLW problem (Beretta et al., 2017;Alexander et al., 2017). Even though the

environmental impacts of FLW are the highest for fresh vegetables, due to the large amounts

wasted, the impacts associated with meat products are also extremely important, since the

specific impact per kilogram is the largest for beef (Beretta et al., 2017). Livestock production

is also associated with the largest rates of mass, energy and protein losses (Alexander et al.,

2017). Despite all this, FLW data for meat products in developing countries are still of

relatively poor quality when compared to data for developed countries (Spang et al., 2019).

This is also true for the Brazilian context, where very little is known about the levels and the

causes of FLW.

The FLW problem has been studied for other beef SCs around the world. Jaja et al. (2018)

identified the major causes of the rejection of offal and carcasses in abattoirs in South Africa.

The UK beef SC was analysed through a value chain analysis technique to develop waste

elimination strategies and good management practices, concluding that a philosophy of

continuous improvement should be pursued to systematically identify and eliminate the root

causes of FLW (Francis et al., 2008). The complaints from consumers via Twitter were

evaluated to determine root causes in the British beef SC, evidencing that waste can be

generated at one stage of the SC and its cause be linked to another (Mishra and Singh, 2018;

Spang et al., 2019). For example, beef that becomes discoloured before its sell-by date and is

discarded at retail might be caused by the lack of vitamin E in the diet fed to the cattle on the

beef farms. This seems to support the idea that an analysis focussing on the different stages

of the food SC is necessary to fully understand why food products are being discarded and,

consequently, assess what can be done to prevent these situations (Mart

ınez et al., 2014;Mena

et al., 2014;Vilari~

no et al., 2017;Spang et al., 2019).

The aim of this research is to improve the discussion concerning FLW in the Brazilian beef

SC in three different ways. First, it expands the literature by presenting the main causes of

Waste in the

Brazilian beef

supply chain

215