The influence of ozone technology on reduction of carrot loss and environmental IMPACT Simona Paulikien _ e a, * , Ke ˛ stutis Venslauskas a , Algirdas Raila a , Renata  Zvirdauskien _ e b, c , Vilma Naujokien _ e a a Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania b Lithuanian Research Centre for Agriculture and Forestry, Kedainiai Region, Lithuania c Kaunas University of Technology, Kaunas, Lithuania article info Article history: Received 25 December 2018 Received in revised form 21 August 2019 Accepted 5 October 2019 Available online 7 October 2019 Handling editor: Jun Bi Keywords: Fresh carrots Carrot treatment Carrot loss Ozonated water Global warming Eutrophication Acidification Life cycle assessment abstract More than half of the world’s agricultural products are lost and do not reach their consumers. Food production is rather energy-susceptible. To solve this problem, the solutions focused on reducing pro- duction loss without harming the environment and human health are developed. Thus, it is useful to preserve product quality and reducing the environmental impact incurred during the preparation of fresh carrots at the same time. It was assessed the extent of the effectiveness on the current loss of fresh carrots throughout the supply chain. The treatment of carrots with ozonated water not only reduces food loss, but also increases productivity. Ozonated water is introduced during the preparation of carrots for sale at farms where fresh carrots are made ready for trade, and at the final stage of processing, the products are sprayed with ozonated water, which allows the surface of the products to be disinfected. The evaluation of microbiological parameters where products were treated with ozonated water at 1.9 ± 0.1 mg L 1 rate and at a temperature of 3.0 ± 0.15  C (RH e 90.45 ± 2.95%) products could be retained 1.8 times longer. The assessment of environmental impact of carrots commercial preparation technology was carried out with SimaPro 8.0.5 software, where two scenarios were compared using a standard carrot treatment line and another using product spray stage with ozonated water. It was established, that using an ozonized water and stored under optimal conditions, product losses could be decreased by 44.4% and the global warming, acidification and eutrophication potential decreased by 45.2%. © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction In terms of food loss, approximately 40% of the world’s food is lost throughout all stages involved in the preparation of it, i.e. in its harvesting, processing and production, as well as at the sale and consumption stages (Eriksson et al., 2012; Gustavsson et al., 2011). At the sale and consumption level, fresh fruit and vegetables ac- count for the largest share, i.e. 15e30% (Gustavsson et al., 2011). Food loss leads to waste of economic resources, natural resources and creates waste management and cultural problems (Willersinn et al., 2017a). This not only leads to economic, social and cultural problems, but can also have a significant impact on the environ- ment (Scholz et al., 2015; Willersinn et al., 2017b; Williams and Wikstr€ om, 2011). The reason for this loss can be biological or environmental (e.g. vegetable breathing, ethylene production, temperature, humidity, composition of the environment), or be the result of social and economic situations (e.g. inadequate marketing, lack of collaboration, distribution and legislation) (Kader, 2005; Williams and Wikstr€ om, 2011). In the food industry, the issue of food loss is very important because it affects economic balance and the efficient use of resources, and this also has impact on the effi- cient development of a food chain system (Brancoli et al., 2017; Richter and Bokelmann, 2016). The reduction of food loss is considered to be the one of the most promising measures for improving food security over the next decades (Beretta et al., 2013; Kummu et al., 2012). They should not only encompass the reduction of food loss, but also the reduction of * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: simona.paulikiene1@vdu.lt, semsimona@gmail.com (S. Paulikien _ e), kestutis.venslauskas@vdu.lt (K. Venslauskas), algirdas.raila@vdu.lt (A. Raila), renata.zvirdauskiene@ktu.lt (R.  Zvirdauskien _ e), vilma.naujokiene@vdu.lt (V. Naujokien _ e). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Cleaner Production journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.118734 0959-6526/© 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Journal of Cleaner Production 244 (2020) 118734