Raising Awareness and Taking Practical Actions to Reduce Food Loss and Waste Is Everyone’s Moral Responsibility to Respond to the Cry of the Earth and of the Poor

Obsculta Volume 18 Issue 1 Article 19 2025 Raising Awareness and Taking Practical Actions to Reduce Food Loss and Waste Is Everyone’s Moral Responsibility to Respond to the Cry of the Earth and of the Poor Thu Hang Phan College of Saint Benedict/Saint John's University, Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.csbsju.edu/obsculta Part of the Ethics in Religion Commons ISSN: 2472-2596 (print) ISSN: 2472-260X (online) Recommended Citation Phan, Thu Hang. 2025. Raising Awareness and Taking Practical Actions to Reduce Food Loss and Waste Is Everyone’s Moral Responsibility to Respond to the Cry of the Earth and of the Poor. Obsculta 18, (1) : 221-243. https://digitalcommons.csbsju.edu/obsculta/vol18/iss1/19. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at CSB and SJU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Obsculta by an authorized administrator of CSB and SJU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact . Raising Awareness and Taking Practical Actions to Reduce Food Loss and Waste Is Everyone’s Moral Responsibility to Respond to the Cry of the Earth and of the Poor Thu H a n g Ph a n A B ST R A C T This paper is a response to the call of Pope Francis as well as the Catholic teaching for global changes to overcome the throwaway culture or culture of waste and care for an integral ecology. The global food system is malfunctioning, leaving large segments of the population undernourished and causing significant environmental damage. Food loss and waste are undoubtedly an ethical issue; however, our awareness of and actions regarding food loss and waste reduction have not been adequate. Therefore, raising awareness and W henever food is thrown out it is as if it were stolen from the table of the poor.”1 In the Encyclical Laudato Si’ and in other teachings, Pope Francis constantly calls for global changes to overcome the “throwaway culture” or “culture of waste.” A representation of this culture is food loss and waste. The global food system is malfunctioning, leaving large segments of the population undernourished and causing significant environmental damage. Food loss in the production, processing, and marketing stages of the food system is a part of the problem; food waste at the retail, food service, and household levels is considered a more taking practical actions to reduce food loss and waste is everyone’s moral responsibility. 1 Pope Francis. Laudato Si, 50 on 24 May 2015; and Catechesis to General Audience, on 5 June 2013. 221 222 O B S C V LTA 2 0 2 5 severe problem.2 Although most people agree that food loss and waste is undoubtedly an ethical issue, our awareness of and actions regarding food loss and waste reduction have not been adequate. Effective solutions come not only from national and international political decisions but also from individuals, families, and communities3 because the majority of food loss and waste happens in households and food services. Therefore, it is necessary for everyone to raise awareness and take action to reduce food loss and waste as well as to respond to the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor. I present the concepts and estimates of food loss and waste in the first part of this paper to show its complex challenges and our unawareness of its issues. First, food loss and waste are a complex, systemic, and global problem. As a result, it is difficult to reach a consensus on the concepts and to understand where in the food supply chain losses and waste are concentrated and why they occur. According to J. von Braun and colleagues, there had been no uniform definition of food waste and loss for many years, which hinders the analysis of food waste and loss, including accurate measurement at national, regional, and global scales. Until 2019, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) defined food loss and waste as a reduction in quality or quantity of food along the food supply chain. It means that food loss happens throughout the food supply chains from harvest to retail, and food waste ensues throughout retail as well as consumption.4 In this recent time, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) has provided a more explicit definition: “Food waste” as food and the associated inedible parts removed from 2 Joachim von Braun, M. Sanchéz Sorondo, and Roy Steine, “Reduction of Food Loss and Waste: The Challenges and Conclusions for Actions,” Science and Innovations for Food Systems Transformation, Edited by J. von Braun et al., (Springer, 2023), 569. 3 Pope Francis, Laudate Deum # 69-71. 4 Joachim von Braun, M. Sanchéz Sorondo, and Roy Steine, “Reduction of Food Loss and Waste: The Challenges and Conclusions for Actions, 571. Raising Awareness and Taking Practical Actions to Reduce Food Loss 223 the human food supply chain which means one of the following end destinations: co/anaerobic digestion; compost/ aerobic digestion; land application; controlled combustion; sewer; litter/discards/refuse; or landfill… “Food” includes drink, and any substance that has been used in the manufacture, preparation or treatment of food… “Food loss” is defined as all the crop and livestock human-edible commodity quantities that, directly or indirectly, completely exit the post-harvest/ slaughter production/supply chain by being discarded, incinerated or otherwise, and do not reenter in any other utilization (such as animal feed, industrial use, etc.), up to, and excluding, the retail level. Losses that occur during storage, transport and processing, also of imported quantities, are therefore all included. Losses include the commodity as a whole with its non-edible parts decrease in edible mass at the production, post-harvest and processing stages of the food chain.5 The concepts of food loss and waste have been further clarified by the United Nations (UN). For example, concerning food loss, it can occur on farms due to insufficient harvest time, climatic conditions, measures taken during harvesting and handling as well as challenges in marketing the product. In addition, food loss can occur during storage due to inadequate storage and decisions made at earlier stages of the supply chain that result in products having a shorter shelf life. Moreover, food loss can occur during transportation because of poor infrastructure and inefficient trade logistics. Besides, processing and packaging also play an important role in food preservation; thus, food loss can occur due to inadequate facilities, technical problems, or human error. Different from food loss, food waste happens in stores. The causes of food waste at the retail level are related to limited shelf life, the need for food products to meet aesthetic standards in terms of color, shape, and size, and variability changes in needs. Furthermore, food waste often happens in the home. Consumer waste is often caused by poor purchase and meal planning, excess buying influenced by over-large (...truncated)