Food losses in the milk supply chain in Russia

Despite the increased research interest in the field of food loss and waste (FLW), understanding the true extent of food losses, both overall and by product type, remains a challenge at each stage from production to consumption. Emphasizing the importance of FLW reduction, current Russian and international studies focus mainly on identifying ways to prevent them, without paying due attention to assessing the total volume of lost products in the food supply chain. The dairy industry of the Russian Federation is a strategic sector that ensures food security, but the level of self-sufficiency in milk is still below the planned indicators of the Food Security Doctrine. This creates the potential for further increase in dairy resources, including by reducing losses. The data already available in literature on estimates of milk losses at different stages of the food supply chain cannot be aggregated due to the incomparability of the studied range of dairy products, different methodological approaches to assessment, differences in the methods of identifying sources of losses and low degree of reliability of the initial information. This paper presents the results of quantification of milk and dairy product losses at the stages from agricultural production up to retail, excluding the latter, based on the methodology developed by the authors. This approach made it possible to identify the real scale of milk losses in Russia: physical volume in the equivalent of raw materials, the economic cost of losses, as well as in relative values to the total volume of resources at each stage of the milk supply chain. Verification of the obtained results indicates their comparability with FAO estimates for the world and other scientific studies for individual countries. In addition, for the first time for Russia, this paper presents a quantitative assessment of the possible effects of preventing milk and dairy product losses from the point of view of improving food security, and demonstrates how reducing losses can contribute to solving various economic, social and environmental issues.

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