초록 열기/닫기 버튼
The purpose of this study is to estimate food losses in households and to analyze factors affecting them. To investigate, a representative sample of 196 households were asked to measure and record all the potentially-edible food wasted in their homes for a week. Samples were collected by family size, income and region proportionally to the population and the survey was conducted from May 17 to June 4 in 2012. Food losses were estimated respectively for 237 kinds of foods by three sources；preparation loss, cooked food residues and storage loss. Total food loss amounts to 9.9%, which consists of 6.1% preparation loss, 3.2% cooked food residues and 0.6% storage loss. By commodities, loss rate of fruits is the most significant, recording 14.19 percents, and the least loss rate is 0.85 percents for cereals. And food loss rates were significantly different by commodities as well as by sources, ranging from 0 to 23.28%. Food loss rate equations were specified and estimated respectively for three sources. As explanatory variables food composition and household characteristic variables, such as family size, income, house type, eating-out, and food purchasing frequency were examined. The estimated equations of preparation loss rate and cooked food residues have, in general, expected signs and statistical significance. But the estimated storage loss rate equation is not so successful to predict the actual values, mainly because 84.7% of observations for dependent variables are censored at zero. Nevertheless, storage loss accounts for only 6.8% of total food loss.
