Retail Food Waste: Existing Research  and Research Gap

Abstract Consumer movements strive to change markets when those markets produce value outcomes that conflict with consumers’ higher-order values. Prior studies argue that consumer movements primarily seek to challenge these value outcomes by championing alternative higher-order values or by pressuring institutions to change market governance mechanisms. Building on and refining theorization on value regimes, this study illuminates a new type of consumer movement strategy where consumers collaborate to construct alternative object pathways. The study draws from ethnographic fieldwork in the German retail food sector and shows how building alternative object pathways allowed a consumer movement to mitigate the value regime’s excessive production of food waste. The revised value regime theorization offers a new and more holistic way of understanding and contextualizing how and where consumer movements mobilize for change. It also provides a new tool for understanding systemic value creation and the role of consumers in such processes.

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Retail price discrimination and food waste

European Review of Agricultural Economics ◽

10.1093/eurrag/jbaa012 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 47 (5) ◽

pp. 1861-1896

Author(s):

Timothy J Richards ◽

Stephen F Hamilton

Keyword(s):

Food Waste ◽

Price Discrimination ◽

Structural Model ◽

Quality Standard ◽

Retail Price ◽

The Us ◽

Retail Prices ◽

Using Data ◽

Retail Food ◽

Minimum Quality

Abstract We examine a food retailer’s incentive to use a minimum quality standard as part of a quality-based price-discrimination strategy and show how price discrimination can result in a substantial level of retail food waste. Using data from a major US food retailer, we estimate a structural model of retail price discrimination and conduct a series of counter-factual experiments to demonstrate that observed retail prices are consistent with quality-based price discrimination in the retail market. Our findings indicate that quality standards on fresh produce can explain a substantial proportion ($7.5\%$) of food waste by retailers in the US.

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The dark side of retail food waste: Evidences from in-store data

Resources Conservation and Recycling ◽

10.1016/j.resconrec.2017.06.010 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 125 ◽

pp. 273-281 ◽

Cited By ~ 32

Author(s):

Clara Cicatiello ◽

Silvio Franco ◽

Barbara Pancino ◽

Emanuele Blasi ◽

Luca Falasconi

Keyword(s):

Food Waste ◽

Dark Side ◽

Retail Food

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Complementing the Dominant Social Paradigm with Sustainability

Journal of Macromarketing ◽

10.1177/0276146717696892 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 37 (2) ◽

pp. 143-152 ◽

Cited By ~ 15

Author(s):

Johanna F. Gollnhofer ◽

John W. Schouten

Keyword(s):

Food Waste ◽

Environmental Sustainability ◽

Underlying Mechanism ◽

Environmental Concerns ◽

Basic Belief ◽

Belief Structures ◽

Retail Food ◽

Social Paradigm ◽

Dominant Social Paradigm

The dominant social paradigm (DSP) defines the basic belief structures and practices of marketplace actors and is manifested in existing exchange structures. Sustainability – a so-called megatrend – challenges the DSP by questioning its underlying assumptions, resulting in tensions or conflicts for different marketplace actors. This study examines a specific case of an alternative market arrangement that bridges tensions between the DSP and environmental concerns. Ethnography in the context of retail food waste disposition reveals tensions experienced by several marketplace actors – namely consumers, retail firms and regulators – and investigates an alternative market arrangement that alleviates those tensions by connecting the actors and their practices in a creative new way. We identify complementarity as the underlying mechanism of connection and resolution. Compared to previously identified alternative market arrangements that are either oppositional or parallel to the DSP, complementarity opens another path toward greater environmental sustainability through market-level solutions.

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A mixed-methods study of retail food waste in New Zealand

Food Policy ◽

10.1016/j.foodpol.2020.101845 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 92 ◽

pp. 101845 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Francesca Goodman-Smith ◽

Miranda Mirosa ◽

Sheila Skeaff

Keyword(s):

Mixed Methods ◽

New Zealand ◽

Food Waste ◽

Mixed Methods Study ◽

Retail Food

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“If only I Could Decide”: Opinions of Food Category Managers on in-Store Food Waste

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su12208592 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (20) ◽

pp. 8592 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Clara Cicatiello ◽

Emanuele Blasi ◽

Claudia Giordano ◽

Angelo Martella ◽

Silvio Franco

Keyword(s):

Supply Chain ◽

Food Waste ◽

Study Data ◽

Waste Reduction ◽

Food Supply Chain ◽

Food Category ◽

Store Management ◽

A Minor ◽

Retail Food

Retail food waste represents a minor fraction of the total amount of food waste produced along the food supply chain (tenfold lower than the quantity of food disposed of by consumers at home). However, the role of retailers is crucial in shaping both the behavior of upstream food chain actors and the preferences of consumers. This paper studies the causes of food waste in retail stores and discusses potential mitigating actions based on the results of nine focus groups held in 2017 with 67 foods category managers. Participants used sticky notes to outline both the causes of in-store food waste and potential actions to address it. Sticky notes reporting 228 causes and 124 actions were collected during the study. Data were analyzed across thematic macro-categories and linked to the responsibility of supply chain actors, including managers at all store management levels. Results revealed that food category managers consider in-store operations (which include their actions and those of their subordinates) to be most responsible for retail food waste. However, when it comes to proposing actions against food waste, they believe that store managers are mainly responsible for the implementation of waste reduction actions. This study suggests that food category managers are key actors to involve in the fight against retail food waste. Greater effort should also be put towards informing and encouraging store managers to take action against food waste in supermarkets.

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