ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the language surrounding food loss and waste and how it may or may not help in understanding and conceptualizing the issues at hand. It introduces economic principles such as incentives, efficiencies, externalities, opportunity costs, and resource constraints to develop a framework for critically discussing food loss and waste. The chapter examines the investigation into fundamental question by examining the costs and benefits of Food Loss and Waste (FLW) and of FLW reduction. The cost of getting the product out of the field and into distribution channels might include the cost of labor for picking and packing; packing material; cold storage; and transportation. The divergence between private and social costs and benefits is described by economists in terms of externality costs, where differences between private costs and relatively higher social costs are described as negative externality costs. The chapter concludes with a discussion of why losses persist and when they may matter.
