foods Review From Quantifying to Managing Food Loss in the Agri-Food Industry Supply Chain Eva M. Sánchez-Teba 1, * , Germán Gemar 1 and Ismael Pablo Soler 2   Citation: Sánchez-Teba, E.M.; Gemar, G.; Soler, I.P. From Quantifying to Managing Food Loss in the Agri-Food Industry Supply Chain. Foods 2021, 10, 2163. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/foods10092163 Academic Editor: Verica Dragovi´ c-Uzelac Received: 6 August 2021 Accepted: 8 September 2021 Published: 13 September 2021 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). 1 Department of Economics and Business Administration, University of Malaga, 29071 Malaga, Spain; ggemar@uma.es 2 Department of Applied Economics (Statistics and Econometrics), University of Malaga, 29071 Malaga, Spain; ipsoler@uma.es * Correspondence: emsanchezteba@uma.es Abstract: The significant contradiction of food waste and food insecurity that preoccupies society today is growing increasingly important. It is estimated that one-third of all food produced globally is either lost or wasted. In a world where almost one billion people are hungry, reducing food loss and waste is critical to creating a world with zero hunger and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by ensuring sustainable consumption and production patterns. This study analyses how scientific research concerning food loss has evolved in recent years, with a focus on the supply chain of agri-food companies. Bibliometric techniques were used to analyse a sample of 181 publications from journals indexed in the Web of Science from 2012 to 2021. The obtained results show a growing interest in this topic and a clear concern for the management and prevention of food loss. An important conclusion is that a holistic approach from a supply chain perspective is needed to devise food loss reduction strategies focusing future lines of research on stakeholder collaboration, the circular economy and related regulatory changes. The study has implications for entrepreneurs and decisionmakers due to the effect that a reduction in food loss has on business strategies, as well as for policymakers in order to create updated food safety and quality regulations. Keywords: SciMAT; food loss and waste; food supply chain; agri-food companies; sustainable development goals; bibliometric analysis 1. Introduction Food loss and waste (FLW) has become one of the great paradoxes of our global society, with numerous environmental, economic and social implications [1]. On the one hand, food security is compromised as millions of people worldwide go hungry and, on the contrary, millions of tons of food are wasted [2]. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of The United Nations (FAO), it is estimated that one-third of food is lost or wasted [3,4]. There are different definitions of food loss and food waste, which has sometimes been a problem for comparing studies and even for unifying results [5]. The FAO is the body that defines food loss and food waste with a focus on the food security dimension [6]. Food loss refers to the reduction in the mass of edible food along the supply chain for human consumption [7]. Some researchers think that food loss and waste occurs throughout the food supply chain [8,9], while some researchers propose that food loss occurs in the upstream supply chain and food waste happens in the downstream supply chain [10]. However, in our research we will go with Antonelli et al. [10]. On the other hand, food waste occurs when food produced for consumption is discarded or not consumed by humans (food is spoiled or was edible when discarded) [11]. Food loss occurs in the upstream supply chain (production, post-harvest or processing) [12], while food wastage occurs downstream, at the retail or consumer stages, where product aesthetics and quality standards to be met play a major role [13]. Foods 2021, 10, 2163. https://doi.org/10.3390/foods10092163 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/foods