Optimization Models for Food Supply Chains with Consideration of Food Loss: A Comprehensive Review

Food loss has become a major problem around the world. Food loss will be a significant threat to the world's food sustainability. An exponential increase in the issue of food loss among policymakers, academics, and even the private sector has occurred in recent years. Research related to the issue of food loss can be grouped into several topics, including the driving factors of food loss, solutions to reduce food loss, the impact of reducing food loss, linkages with sustainability, quantification of food loss and other new themes. The research above is conducted mainly with quantitative and qualitative empirical research methods, and few use optimization models. This study will present a comprehensive review of recent research in the field of food supply chains with a focus on reducing food loss, especially using an optimization model approach. An in-depth literature review is conducted related to the model approach, decision variables, objective function, solution approach, and food loss studied. This study helps provide direction and opportunities for researchers and practitioners to identify the current state of affairs, gaps in current research, and future studies on food loss.