Article
Mapping Energy Efficiency in the Sustainable Food Industry: A Combined Bibliometric–Meta-Analytic Approach
Sustainable food production increasingly depends on improving energy efficiency, adopting environmentally friendly technologies, cutting carbon emissions, and building resilient value chains. Although international initiatives, including those led by the UN Environment Programme, have promoted climate-smart practices, food systems remain complex, and the underlying causes of unsustainability are not always clear. To explore these challenges, this study combines a bibliometric review of nearly 1100 research articles published between 2002 and 2024 with a focused meta-analysis of most effective eight recent empirical studies assessing sustainability interventions. The bibliometric analysis highlights a sharp rise in publications since past one decade, with leading institutions and countries driving contributions and expanding cross-disciplinary collaborations. Complementing this, the meta-analysis reveals statistically significant and positive effects, with overall effect sizes ranging from moderate to large (Hedges’ g ≈ 0.4–1.1). Smaller studies reported stronger but less precise results, while larger studies yielded moderate yet more dependable findings. Meta-regression further shows that high-quality research designs consistently deliver more reliable outcomes, whereas small-study bias tends to inflate impacts. Together, these results underline the dual importance of advancing sustainability technologies while strengthening methodological rigor. The policy message is clear: scaling sustainable food value chains requires investment not only in technology but also in robust program design, monitoring, and verification.