Annotated summary

Galanakis, M (2015). Food Waste Recovery – Processing Technologies and Industrial Techniques. Elsevier. Retrieved from https://app.knovel.com/hotlink/toc/id:kpFWRPTIT1/food-waste-recovery-processing/food-waste-recovery-processing

This article gives insight into the challenge of reducing food waste globally. While the global demand of food is growing, it is a challenge to ensure that there is a sustainable supply to meet the future demand (Galanakis. M, 2015). The article provides global statistics on the impact of food and nutrition security due to the quantity of food lost and wasted. Food waste recovery can improve the sustainability of food systems by making full use of the valuable compounds which can be recovered from food waste. Food waste can be utilized in a way where the waste is repurposed so that the leftover compounds will reap potential benefits and food waste is reduced. The article elaborates on the types of food waste and the methods of recovering food waste. There are 2 main groups of food waste and 7 subcategories within the groups. One main group is of plant origin and this includes cereals, roots and tubers, oil crops and pulses as well as fruits and vegetables. The other main group is of animal origin and this includes meat products, fish and seafood as well as dairy products. There are 5 main treatments of food waste; valorisation as animal feed, landfilling, biofuel conversion, composting and valorisation to recover food waste. The article covers the different technologies used to recover food waste and addresses the emerging techniques which were being developed. Food waste can be significantly reduced by utilizing conventional and emerging technologies which aims to maximise the potential of compounds in food waste, thus making the food system more sustainable.