ORGANIC AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION, CONSUMER SOCIETY AND FOOD WASTE—A COMPLEX DASHBOARD FOR ASSESSING QUALITY

Food consumption in the last 10-15 years has undergone significant changes, a notable trend in developed countries. The orientation towards different food categories is supported by solid landmarks with strong influence, such as food quality, orientation towards organic products, product diversity, price, promotions, impact on health, etc. Establishing some objectives dedicated to social and economic progress is a real measure of sustainable development, but not a guarantee of sustainability. The development of society, the acceleration of economic growth, and the ever-increasing food consumption constitute an obvious trend. Consequently, the quantity of food waste is also increasing, making it difficult to manage. Although efforts to stimulate the consumption of organic products have been supported, the expected level of success has not been achieved.

This paper addresses the connection between three major issues that influence each other: organic production requirements, food hyper-consumption, and food waste management. All of these involve approaches to quality, which seems to be affected when the objectives of the three directions are opposed. The quantitative increase in food consumption generates commercial benefits, but determines major food waste management problems, and organic production remains limited. So, a complex dashboard is built and analyzed with the three components, with the appreciation of quality as a common denominator . The goal is to identify the causes that generate disruptions between the three components and to propose solutions that can regulate the imbalances highlighted. The analysis is conducted on the North-East Development Region of Romania, with reference data for the last 5 years. The results show that the consumption of organic food is limited, food hyper-consumption is increasingly widespread, being a false sign of well-being, while food waste management is becoming increasingly difficult due to the amount of waste and a socio-economic climate that affects the understanding level of the population regarding the quantity–quality ratio in food consumption.