**1. Introduction**

Solomon Islands is a South Pacific archipelago consisting of six major islands and a further 986 smaller islands, atolls and reefs. Around 84% of Solomon Islanders reside in rural villages and are dependent on subsistence-based agriculture and local fisheries [1,2]. In recent times, commercial food supply chains have become increasingly important in the Solomon Islands due to a combination of rural to urban population drift [3,4], population growth [5,6], ongoing challenges associated with agricultural productivity [7], and the impacts of adverse weather events [1,2,8]. This trend is particularly acute in the capital Honiara, with only 32% of the urban population having access to a home garden [6]. Most of the population that resides in Honiara, are now dependent on the municipal horticultural market and a network of smaller road-side markets to source their fresh fruits and vegetables.

Honiara's horticultural markets not only provide important food security and human nutrition outcomes [9,10], but create opportunities for local economic development and demonstrate a strong gender participation bias in favor of women market vendors [9,11]. The income generated from these markets provides essential livelihood support for local squatter settlements in the "greater Honiara" region [3] and are a primary source of income for many close proximity islands such as Savo Island [7] and possibly Florida Island. This combination of socio-economic, pro-gender engagement and food security and nutrition benefits, has led to an increased focus by donors on market-based interventions in the Solomon Islands [12].

The need to improve the operational efficiency and effectiveness of the Honiara municipal market have been widely recognized [2,11,12]. The Honiara municipal market is constrained by overcrowding, poor sanitation and concerns about vendor safety [12–14]. Most studies undertaken in support of the Honiara municipal markets have done so from a community resilience, gender and human security perspective [3,4,7,11,15,16]. Its only recently that the underlying horticultural supply chains have been examined in any detail [7,11,16], providing a wider understanding of farm demographics, transport logistics and vendor practice. What remains unclear, is how efficiently the Honiara markets and their associated supply chains operate in terms of postharvest horticultural loss. Unlike other South Pacific islands such as Fiji [17,18] and Samoa [19], there are no previous reported studies on postharvest market loss in any of the markets in the Solomon Islands. With generic poor postharvest handling, potentially high-levels of postharvest loss in Honiara markets could be undermining domestic food security.

This study reports on a preliminary assessment of postharvest horticultural market loss and associated supply chain logistics at the Honiara municipal market and five road-side markets on Guadalcanal Island. The inclusion of Honiara road-side markets in this study reflects an increasing recognition of their importance in the overall food distribution system in Solomon Islands [15]. This study is part of an ongoing longitudinal assessment of postharvest horticultural loss in Honiara municipal market and road-side markets (Guadalcanal Island), Auki municipal market (Malaita Island) and the Gizo municipal market (Ghizo Island).
