Does the modernisation of food chains reduce food losses and waste in developing countries? Insights from the tomato chain in Colombia

In developing countries, food losses and waste (FLW) are expected to be high at post-harvest stages (e.g. storage, transport, retail) due to poor infrastructure, poor post-harvest handling and technical constraints, especially for perishable products. The paper intends: i) to assess the volume of unsold food products (i.e. quantitative FLW) for the tomato chain supplying Cali, and ii) to identify the determining factors, in particular, the nature of marketing chains. It is based on primary data collected along the tomato supply chain of Cali in Colombia, from production to retail stage. We find relatively low levels of FLW: 12% for farmers on average, less than 5% for traders. The lowest levels are observed when farmers combine different food chains, i.e. supermarket and non-supermarket driven. This behaviour is adapted to the diversity of social and economic characteristics of consumers. It is discussed in reference to theories of plural forms of governance in food chains. Key words Food losses and waste, food supply chain, supermarkets, plural forms, market complementarities, case study Acknowledgement : This article is an outcome of a PhD thesis at the Doctoral School of Economics and Management in Montpellier and at the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (Cirad). The authors gratefully acknowledge the CIAT in Cali for the material and financial support provided for data collection and for the dissemination and discussion of the results with the stakeholders. A special thanks to Guy Henry for his helpful advices in the field. We are sincerely grateful to the many stakeholders of the tomato chain that took the time to participate in the survey.