In Poland, to our best knowledge, none of the scientific publications produced to date have addressed the scale of wasted food in households and the impact of sociodemographic and economic factors on this. This study fills this research gap. The study was carried out in 2019 on a nationwide random-quota sample of 500 households, which are representative of all households.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Environ Res Public Health
October 2022
Food waste remains a major problem for the world and food security. Despite the fact that consumers are significant producers of food waste, little research attention has been paid to young people who are in college and living away from the family home. The present study aimed to assess food waste among college students living away from the family home, taking into account the nutritional knowledge acquired during college.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Environ Res Public Health
July 2022
Food waste in households is a consequence of the accumulation of improper practices employed by consumers when dealing with food. The survey estimated the impact of practices of Polish respondents, in the context of selected food safety and hygiene issues, on throwing away food due to spoilage. The survey was conducted in 2019, in a random quota-based, nationwide sample of 1115 respondents 18 years old and older.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Environ Res Public Health
July 2020
Food loss and waste represent a global problem in the ethical, social, environmental, and economic contexts. The aim of this article is to identify leading concepts in studies on food loss and waste in management research by network analysis of the co-occurrence of keywords, via mapping of knowledge domains, a method used in bibliometrics. We analyzed 2202 records from the Scopus database on food waste management with the aid of the VOSviewer software tool.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Environ Res Public Health
March 2020
The objective of this paper is to evaluate the knowledge and practices of Polish consumers in terms of broadly defined hygiene on food preparation at home. The consequence of improper food handling may be a faster rate of food spoilage. A specially designed questionnaire was used.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCurrently, food waste is estimated at more than one-third of all food produced, and the primary responsibility for this phenomenon is attributed to households. Therefore, it seems reasonable to take action to limit food waste and to raise awareness about this link in the chain. To develop and implement educational programs addressed at consumers it is necessary to understand the factors determining food waste in households.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFood labelled with a "best before" date has a long shelf life. This study aimed to examine the respondents' knowledge and understanding regarding the labelling on food products, as well as to assess the microbiological, physico-chemical and the sensory quality of selected durable food products on and after the date specified by the manufacturer. Two methods were used-a survey and laboratory tests.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF"Food loss", defined as food produced for human consumption, which for various reasons leaves the supply chain, can be assigned to a group of new risks. Irrational use of food constitutes a risk to the environment. Moreover, food losses represent a missed opportunity to improve global food security.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Providing safe food products to the consumer depends on the material and technology used and adherence to hygienic practices, throughout the production process. The degree of microbial contamination of a surface is an important indicator of equipment cleanliness and effectiveness of cleaning and disinfection. Used material, construction solutions and quality of the applied devices also have an effect on hygienic status.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAll entities of the food supply chain should be responsible for counteracting food waste, therefore a need arises for joint initiatives in this area. To reduce food waste, businesses should be supported with a number of procedures for the efficient use of food for social purposes that shall be consistent with the law in force. Although they can bring about some losses, the following factors neither pose a threat to human health nor affect the donation of food for social purposes: wrong labelling of packages, food product wrong weight, close-to-end expiration date as well as mechanical damage to bulk packages.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF