Food System Material Flow Analysis model

The main uses of the model for policy support are to compare the estimated amounts with the food waste quantities reported by MSs for measurements applied according to Annex III of Delegated Decision (EU) 2019/1597 (i.e. direct measurements, waste composition analysis, diaries and the like), and to allow data quality checks for estimations performed according to Annex IV of Delegated Decision (EU) 2019/1597, for instance when measured data (according to Annex III) from former years are scaled with socio-economic indicators. Furthermore, the information provided by the model was used complementarily to data on food waste generation reported by MSs in the context of the impact assessment of a legislative proposal setting legally binding food waste reduction targets for MSs. In this context, since the annual reported food waste quantities are not disaggregated at the level of product groups, these quantities were combined with information extracted from the MFA model on the contribution of the different product groups to the food waste generated in each country and stage of the supply chain. This allowed to perform a more accurate analysis of the environmental impacts embodied in food waste and consequently of the potential environmental savings that would be obtained by meeting the targets (Sala et al., 2023, De Jong et al., 2023).

In addition, as this model contributes to a better understanding of the physical flow of materials across the food system and of its efficiency and circularity potential, it can further support policy making in a number of ways.

• Monitoring: yearly updates of the estimates of food waste, food losses, and by-products can allow tracking the evolution of the system over time
• Identifying hotspots, in terms of products, stages of the food chain, and countries responsible for a large share of food waste generation, and the potential for increasing the efficiency of the food system
• Setting a baseline against which policy options and green transitions scenarios can be tested, such as increased circularity and efficiency of supply chains, reduced food waste, and dietary shifts.

Therefore, the food system MFA model can support both monitoring and ex-post evaluation of existing policies, as well as performing scenario analysis that can be used in ex-ante impact assessment of policies.