Addressing food loss and waste (FLW) globally is critical for both improving food security and mitigating environmental pollution. While there are numerous studies addressing FLW in terms of nutrition, food security, food safety, public health and the economy, there is only a small body of life cycle assessment (LCA) research aimed at understanding impacts from FLW. We conducted a literature review of LCA studies focused on FLW in the food supply chain (FSC) to ascertain the state of the science and identify the research gaps. We identified 22 original research articles that met our search criteria and spanned the four stages of LCA. Regarding the goal and scope, there were a dearth of studies focused on the top of the waste hierarchy (prevention). Further, we identified a research gap in studies that accounted for avoided production from food waste management in the overall LCA and distinguished between avoidable and unavoidable waste streams. LCA studies to date largely used a mass-basis as the functional unit and were limited in terms of spatial and temporal specificity. Within the life cycle inventory, most of the studies were conducted in Europe and only one study in the US. In addition, some of the studies lack data transparency. The life cycle impact assessment phase showed that most of the studies only assess global warming potential with fewer studies evaluating energy, water demand and human toxicity. Lastly, within life cycle interpretation more than half of the studies focus on at least one of the three types of uncertainties supporting more informed policy decision making.

在全球范围内解决粮食损失和浪费（FLW）对于改善粮食安全和减轻环境污染至关重要。尽管在营养，食品安全，食品安全，公共卫生和经济方面有许多针对粮食损失与浪费的研究，但是只有一小部分旨在了解粮食损失与浪费的生命周期评估（LCA）研究。我们对食品供应链（FSC）中的粮食损失与浪费进行的LCA研究进行了文献综述，以确定科学状况并确定研究差距。我们确定了22篇符合我们搜索标准的原始研究文章，涵盖了LCA的四个阶段。关于目标和范围，缺乏针对废物等级（预防）最高层的研究。进一步，我们在研究中发现了一个研究空白，这些空白可以解释整个LCA中食物垃圾管理所避免的生产，并区分了可避免的废物流和不可避免的废物流。迄今为止，LCA研究主要使用质量基准作为功能单位，并且在空间和时间特异性方面受到限制。在生命周期清单中，大多数研究在欧洲进行，只有一项在美国进行。此外，一些研究缺乏数据透明性。生命周期影响评估阶段表明，大多数研究仅评估全球变暖潜能，而较少评估能量，需水量和人体毒性的研究。最后，在生命周期解释中，超过一半的研究都集中在三种类型的不确定性中的至少一种上，以支持更明智的政策决策。