Understanding the nexus of environmental and socio-economic impacts of food losses: An analysis of the basket of products in France, Germany, Italy, and Spain

Academic and policy concern has focused on food waste (FW) occurring at the retail and consumer levels, while food loss (FL) at primary production stage remains less explored. This asymmetry has resulted in a fragmented understanding of FL impacts. This study adopts a life cycle perspective to assess the multidimensional (environmental and socio-economic) impacts of FL in four EU countries (France, Germany, Italy and Spain) across a selected Basket of Products (BoP), exploring the nexus between these impacts to support targeted intervention strategies with scientific evidence. Findings reveal that economic costs of FL vary significantly across countries, and that the target countries exhibit high footprints for the selected BoP across key indicators such as CO 2 emissions, land use, and water consumption. The nexus analysis demonstrates that country- and product-specific policy interventions are needed to optimize resource efficiency, while avoiding unintended consequences across sustainability domains and unlock co-benefits.