The challenge of characterising food waste at a national level—An Australian example

摘要: Abstract This study critiques available methods for the national-level, sector specific, characterisation of food waste. Such estimates are required to account environmental and socio-economic implications waste, identify highest impact most cost-effective solutions reduce those negative outcomes associated with wasted food. Australian results compared using three fundamentally different approaches taken from literature, along two variants implemented this study. The extremely inconsistent, suggesting that our current quantitative knowledge on waste may not be sufficient optimal prioritisation mitigation options. While these ‘conventional’ methodologies in isolation, their strengths complementary would ideally integrated into a single analytical framework incorporates best top-down bottom-up datasets.