Inside the food value chain: Where food is lost – and how it can be saved

In a warehouse on the outskirts of a city, crates of produce arrive before dawn. Some are bruised in transit. Some sit too long before being sorted. A portion – small enough to seem negligible, large enough to matter – will never leave the building.

Food loss and waste rarely announce themselves. They accumulate, quietly, across decisions: when to harvest, how to store, what to discard, what cannot be sold. By the time food reaches a consumer – if it does – it has already passed through a series of choices.

A new course from the Virtual Learning Center of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) focuses on these choices. “Tackling Food Loss and Waste across the Agrifood Systems,” now available in an open-access format, examines how food loss and waste occur and what can be done to prevent and reduce it.

Developed by the FAO Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia, in collaboration with the International Food Waste Coalition programme under WRAP Europe, the course follows the path of food through production, processing, retail and food service. At each stage, it asks a set of questions: Where does loss occur, what drives it, and what can be changed without remaking the system entirely?

In primary production, losses often reflect timing and shifts in market demand. In processing, they frequently result from specifications that reject edible food. In retail and hospitality, they often stem from forecasting, storage and portioning.

“The development of this course has been a journey of collaboration and learning, bringing together partners and practitioners from across the region. It combines technical expertise, field experience, and regional perspectives. Reducing food loss and waste starts with measurement, but it does not stop there,” said Raimund Jehle, FAO Regional Programme Leader. “This course was designed to support practitioners in moving from data to action: identifying root causes, implementing solutions, and tracking progress over time. Its aim is to turn knowledge into action by equipping stakeholders with the tools to reduce food loss and waste in a practical and measurable way.”

“This collaboration with FAO has delivered an outstanding outcome: a course that is both technically robust and firmly anchored in operational realities across the food value chain,” commented Stéphane Leroux, Executive Director of the IFWC Programme. “From IFWC’s perspective, it demonstrates how joint efforts can effectively translate knowledge, methodologies and field experience into practical solutions that support measurable food loss and waste reduction in real world contexts.”

The course reflects a broader shift in how the issue is understood and addressed. It is framed as something that can be measured, compared and managed, drawing on methodologies developed by FAO and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), as well as the Food Loss and Waste Accounting and Reporting Standard, and approaches such as Target-Measure-Act.

The six-module course emphasizes application throughout: it provides measurement tools, case studies and examples of real-world interventions tailored to each stage of the food supply chain: primary production, processing, retail/wholesale, and hotels, restaurants and catering (HoReCa). It is designed to support practitioners in measuring and monitoring losses within their own operations, identifying root causes, developing responses and assessing both economic and environmental outcomes. The course also features a technical webinar on consumer food waste, including a presentation by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety (DG SANTE).

The course was co-developed with partners and peer-reviewed by multiple technical experts to ensure both technical accuracy and practical relevance.

The course pilot was delivered with instructors in early 2025, bringing together 171 participants from 11 countries across Eastern Europe, the Western Balkans, the Caucasus, Central Asia and Türkiye. Participants came from across the food system – farmers, processors, retailers, civil society and policymakers – with different constraints but similar questions about where losses occur and how they can be reduced.

The course is free and available worldwide. It can be taken in sequence or consulted as needed. It does not promise a one-size-fits-all solution. Instead, it offers tools to measure losses, trace their causes and reduce them, step by step.