Food loss in Brazil’s horticulture chains

According to research conducted by the Brazilian agricultural research corporation Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária (Embrapa), post-harvest losses in Brazil can reach around 30% for fruit and about 35% for vegetables, depending on the product and supply chain. Reducing these losses could increase food availability without expanding agricultural production.

A systemic challenge across the food chain

Food loss is often discussed as if it occurs at a single stage of the supply chain. However, researchers emphasize that it is a systemic issue that connects decisions made by farmers, logistics providers, retailers, food services, and consumers. Losses can vary greatly according to seasons, produce type, regions, technology level as well as transportation distance and type of transport.

Brazil’s geography: logistics and climate vulnerability

In Brazil, production areas are often located far from major urban markets such as São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Brasília. Fresh produce may travel hundreds or even thousands of kilometers before reaching consumers. During this journey, highly perishable fruit and vegetables face several risks: mechanical damage during harvesting and transport, unsuitable packaging, long trucking times and exposure to a cold chain that is often irregular and outside ideal temperatures.

In tropical and subtropical climates, these factors accelerate natural biological processes such as respiration and water loss, which shortens shelf life, and increases the risk of deterioration. As a result, cold-chain infrastructure plays a critical role in preserving product quality. However, temperature-controlled logistics are not yet consistently available across all regions and supply chains as Brazil are still largely truck-based. A 2018 study, carried out in the state of Maranhão (one of the hottest states in Brazil), found a post-harvest loss of 18.4% in tomatoes – the highest among any of the fruit and vegetables analyzed.

These innovations can significantly extend shelf life and improve supply-chain efficiency, particularly when combined with better management practices.

There is also room for added value through industrialization, making horticultural products more stable and commercially viable through dehydration, biorefineries, fermentation, functional foods, and related applications.

Dr. Sasaki also pointed to the promising field of edible coatings based on microorganisms and other bio-inputs, building on Brazil’s strong position in biocontrol research and technology. In her interview with the LAN team, she added that Brazil could benefit from partnerships with countries such as the Netherlands. Knowledge developed for temperate fruit, for instance, could be further adapted to Brazil’s tropical setting through joint research between teams in both countries.

Public food programs as part of the solution

Brazil has large public food programs that play an important role in reducing food loss while strengthening food security. The country operates one of the world’s largest school feeding programs through the Programa Nacional de Alimentacao Escolar (PNAE), which provides daily meals to tens of millions of students in public schools. The program requires that at least 30% of food purchased for school meals comes from family farmers, creating an important market for small-scale producers.

Public procurement initiatives such as PNAE and the ‘Programa de Aquisição de Alimentos’ (PAA) – that purchases food directly from family farmers to distribute to vulnerable groups and supply government networks (schools, hospitals)-  can help prevent food loss by providing stable demand for products that might otherwise struggle to find markets.

In addition, Brazil has developed an expanding network of food banks and social food retail initiatives in cities such as Curitiba. These initiatives redistribute surplus food, provide training on food use, and sometimes process fruit and vegetables that would otherwise be discarded.

Some cities have also begun experimenting with circular approaches. In Recife, for example, programs have been implemented to collect surplus produce from street markets, redistribute edible food through public food banks, and convert the remaining organic waste into compost for community gardens.

Opportunities for Dutch knowledge institutes and companies

Concrete developments are already underway in the cooperation between the Netherlands and Brazil. Recently, a workshop, which is part of the Orange Dialogues series, was organized in Holambra by the LAN team. This city constitutes a major Dutch hub in Brazil—the result of the immigration of Dutch farmers—and today serves as the country's most important horticultural center, hosting a wide range of national and international companies and service providers in the sector, as well as trade fairs and events. During this workshop, participants contributed to LAN's sector report (currently under preparation) and discussed the possibility of establishing a branch of the World Horti Center in Brazil—a potential future home for many Dutch horticultural companies and knowledge institutes in the country.

Furthermore, with the Netherlands’ globally recognized expertise in efficient farming practices, post-harvest technology, agrilogistics and horticultural supply chains, both in companies and in universities and other knowledge institutes, potential areas of cooperation include:

• precision agriculture: sensors, robotics and imaging; 

• cold-chain infrastructure and sustainable refrigeration; 

• smart logistics and digital supply-chain management; 

• improved packaging technologies; 

• circular solutions for food residues and organic waste; 

• bio-inputs and coatings for better produce shelf life.

Ensuring that more fruit and vegetables successfully travel from farm to plate is not only an economic challenge; it is a key step toward building more sustainable and resilient food systems.

More information

Would you like to know more about Brazil’s initiatives and research on food loss and other current topics? You can visit the country page of Brazil on this website, or contact the LAN team at the Dutch Embassy in Brasilia via bra-lvvn@minbuza.nl.

Do you want to read more about food loss in Brazil? You can visit:

• Mesa no Campo 

• Projeto Colheita Solidária combate a insegurança alimentar, em São João del-Rei

• Cities & food: European Union - Brazil dialogue on sustainable urban food systems