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Food Waste Reduction and Sustainability

Food Waste Reduction and Sustainability is a research topic within Food Science. Science Explorer counts 18k research works in it since 1951. 10.2% of them reached the world's top 10% most cited for their field and year.

This cluster of papers focuses on the quantification, management, and reduction of food waste across food supply chains, households, and consumer behaviors. It explores the environmental impacts of food waste, strategies for waste reduction, and the role of packaging in minimizing waste. The cluster also addresses the societal and economic implications of food waste, aiming to promote sustainable practices and policies.

  • Food Waste
  • Supply Chain
  • Household Behavior
  • Environmental Impact
  • Waste Reduction
  • Food Loss
  • Packaging
  • Sustainability
  • Consumer Attitudes
  • Global Impact
Research works
18k
fractional, since 1951
In the world top 10%
1.8k
per year above
Top-10% rate
10.2%
share of its works in the world top 10%
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25
+77%
the tick is no change
Largest producer
India
20% of the 10 largest, 2022-now
Food Waste Reduction and Sustainability

Which countries lead Food Waste Reduction and Sustainability research?

By volume, India and the United States publish the most (939 and 759 works in 2022-now).

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 India 939 works
  2. 2 United States 759 works
  3. 3 China 621 works
  4. 4 Indonesia 443 works
  5. 5 United Kingdom 419 works
  6. 6 Brazil 376 works
  7. 7 Italy 373 works
  8. 8 Türkiye 292 works
  9. 9 Malaysia 236 works
  10. 10 Australia 217 works

How concentrated that is

The same countries as shares of everything the list above accounts for. A node where two countries do two thirds of the work and one spread evenly across twelve read alike as a ranking and not at all alike here.

India: 20.1%United States: 16.2%China: 13.3%Indonesia: 9.5%6 others listed: 40.9%20%largest
India939 · 20.1%United States759 · 16.2%China621 · 13.3%Indonesia443 · 9.5%6 others listed1,914 · 40.9%

Shares of the rows listed above, not of the whole node.

Which institutions lead Food Waste Reduction and Sustainability research?

By volume in 2022-now, Wageningen University & Research publishes the most Food Waste Reduction and Sustainability research, followed by Institut National de Recherche pour l'Agriculture, l'Alimentation et l'Environnement and Universiti Teknologi MARA.

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 Wageningen University & ResearchNetherlands 63 works
  2. 2 Institut National de Recherche pour l'Agriculture, l'Alimentation et l'EnvironnementFrance 45 works
  3. 3 Universiti Teknologi MARAMalaysia 37 works
  4. 4 Centre National de la Recherche ScientifiqueFrance 29 works
  5. 5 IPB UniversityIndonesia 24 works
  6. 6 Indian Council of Agricultural ResearchIndia 23 works
  7. 7 Lovely Professional UniversityIndia 22 works
  8. 8 Aarhus UniversityDenmark 22 works
  9. 9 Chinese Academy of SciencesChina 21 works
  10. 10 University of BolognaItaly 21 works

Who are the leading researchers in Food Waste Reduction and Sustainability?

The most-cited researchers publishing on Food Waste Reduction and Sustainability include Walter Churchill Willett, Cyrus Cooper and Gordon Henry Guyatt.

  1. 1 Walter Churchill Willett United States 411k citations
  2. 2 Cyrus Cooper United Kingdom 342k citations
  3. 3 Gordon Henry Guyatt Canada 315k citations
  4. 4 Frank B. Hu United States 281k citations
  5. 5 Dariush Mozaffarian United States 218k citations
  6. 6 David Tilman United States 209k citations
  7. 7 Seeram Ramakrishna Singapore 186k citations
  8. 8 David Julian McClements United States 185k citations

Ranked by citations received across their whole record, among researchers with at least three works on this topic.

What are the most cited papers in Food Waste Reduction and Sustainability?

The most cited paper in Food Waste Reduction and Sustainability is "Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers" (Joseph Poore, Thomas Nemecek, 2018), with 6,084 citations. Next come "Inhibition of anaerobic digestion process: A review" (4,840) and "Options for keeping the food system within environmental limits" (3,395).

Most cited papers
#PaperReleasedCitations
1 Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers Joseph Poore, Thomas Nemecek · Science Jun 2018 6,084
2 Inhibition of anaerobic digestion process: A review Ye Chen, Jay Jiayang Cheng, Kurt S. Creamer · Bioresource Technology 31 Mar 2007 4,840
3 Options for keeping the food system within environmental limits Marco Springmann et al. · Nature Open access 9 Oct 2018 3,395
4 Food waste within food supply chains: quantification and potential for change to 2050 Julian P. Parfitt, Mark Barthel, Sarah J. Macnaughton · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences Open access 16 Aug 2010 3,210
5 Ultra-processed foods: what they are and how to identify them Carlos Augusto Monteiro, Geoffrey Cannon, Renata Bertazzi Levy et al. · Public Health Nutrition Open access 12 Feb 2019 2,941
All 100 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is Food Waste Reduction and Sustainability research done?

The largest centres of Food Waste Reduction and Sustainability research in 2022-now are Beijing (China), London (United Kingdom), Jakarta (Indonesia) and Wageningen (Netherlands). Among places with at least 20 works in it, it is an unusually large share of all research in Wageningen.

Largest cities, 2022-now

  1. 1 BeijingChina 138 works
  2. 2 LondonUnited Kingdom 86 works
  3. 3 JakartaIndonesia 70 works
  4. 4 WageningenNetherlands 68 works
  5. 5 New DelhiIndia 61 works
  6. 6 IstanbulTürkiye 57 works
  7. 7 TehranIran 55 works
  8. 8 Kuala LumpurMalaysia 53 works
  9. 9 ParisFrance 53 works
  10. 10 BengaluruIndia 49 works

Where it is the local speciality

  1. WageningenNL · 67.6 works21×
← less than its size predicts1×more →

Location quotient: how much more of its research is in Food Waste Reduction and Sustainability than the world average.

See Food Waste Reduction and Sustainability on the map

Where is the best place to study Food Waste Reduction and Sustainability?

Among universities, judged by research, Wageningen University & Research, ETH Zurich and Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences score highest, combining citation excellence, specialisation, size, growth and international reach. Research strength is one signal when choosing where to study; it does not measure teaching.

0%20%40%mean 21.31%fractional works in this field (log) →share of work in the world top 10% →ETH ZurichSwedish University o…RMIT UniversityWageningen Universit…
above the meannear itbelow it

One dot per university in the first ten of the table below, at the default weights. The upper left is the interesting corner: small places doing unusually strong work.

Citation excellenceshare of its work in the world top 10%, 2022-now and all time averaged
40%
Specialisationhow much of its work is in this field, counted up to 10× the world share
10%
Sizeits output in this field, on a log scale
30%
Growthoutput growth, counted from -20% to +20%
10%
Internationalshare of its work with a co-author abroad
10%
Each slider sets a weight; the share it gets of the score is beside it.
#UniversityScoreTop 10%SpecialisationWorksGrowth
1Wageningen University & ResearchNetherlands 76.216.5%23.7×63 +59.4%
2ETH ZurichSwitzerland 63.142.8%1.7×9 +52.0%
3Swedish University of Agricultural SciencesSweden 62.021.4%18.1×21 +55.6%
4RMIT UniversityAustralia 55.617.9%5.7×16 +99.8%
5Central Queensland UniversityAustralia 54.825.4%16.4×12 +134.3%
6University of BolognaItaly 53.216.7%3.4×21 +32.3%
7University of BirminghamUnited Kingdom 51.939.6%2.1×10 +101.8%
8Lovely Professional UniversityIndia 49.314.1%6.1×22 +571.7%
9University of JohannesburgSouth Africa 47.916.6%4.2×19 +263.3%
10Universiti Teknologi MARAMalaysia 46.52.1%6.5×36 +153.0%

Universities only. The score blends citation excellence (40%), size (30%), specialisation (10%), growth (10%), international reach (10%), 2022-now; growth compares 2018-21 with 2022-25 and counts up to +20%, since a jump from a small base is mostly noise.

Every institution in Food Waste Reduction and Sustainability, country by country

Is Food Waste Reduction and Sustainability research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 77% higher than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2025. The fastest-growing topics are Food Waste Reduction and Sustainability.

still counting19801990200020102020
grewheldshrank

The same series as a ribbon: one cell per year, darker for more. The line above answers how much; this answers when.

Its share of all research

Growing output can still be a shrinking share: all of science grows. This is Food Waste Reduction and Sustainability as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.038% in 2024.

still counting0.020%0.040%Food Waste Reduction and Sustainability0.039% in 202519801990200020102020

Fractional works of Food Waste Reduction and Sustainability over all fractional works that year. How the balance of science has shifted.

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Year by year.

still counting5%10%15%Food Waste Reduction and Sustainability10.3% in 2025200020102020

Of each year's works in it, the share that reached the world's 10% most cited for their field and year. A field is the world for its own topics, so there is no other line to hold it against.

Which topics inside it are moving

Growth and decline on one axis around a shared zero. Two lists side by side hide the thing that matters: whether the growth dwarfs the decline, or the other way round.

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