Charity Starts … at Work? Conceptual Foundations for Research with Businesses that Donate to Food Redistribution Organisations

Abstract

Abstract:As global concern about sustainability, food waste, and poverty increases, there is an urgent need to understand what motivates businesses to adopt pro-social and pro-environmental behaviours. This paper suggests that food redistribution organisations hold both pro-social and pro-environmental aims, due to their concern with reducing food surplus and food insecurity. To achieve this, they must motivate food businesses to donate their surplus food. However, little is known about the values, attitudes, and motives of food industry donors. The purpose of this paper is to provide a theoretical and conceptual overview to set out principles from which empirical data on food redistribution will be analysed or critiqued. Specifically, it explores pro-social and pro-environmental literature, as these fields have examined the motivations behind donations and reducing environmental impact. This review highlights that charitable giving of food is different to other inorganic material, such as money. Thus, future research is needed to capture the unique temporal, emotional, social, and environmental factors that motivate food donations. This information may contribute to the development of strategies that target and motivate people from the food industry to become food donors. Alternatively, it may reveal concerns about food donations, and highlight the need for other approaches to food waste and food insecurity.

Good deeds revisited: motivation and boundary spanning in formal volunteering

“…But at the same time he is aware that his situation is not the standard. The statement confirms findings of Vlaholias et al (2015) that awareness of need is an essential requirement for any type of philanthropic behavior.…”

“…Reasons for food insecurity can be the unavailability of food, insufficient financial means, inappropriate distribution or inadequate use of food at the household level (FAO 2015). In developed countries, such as Germany, food insecurity rather occurs due to inequality or poverty than due to food scarcity (Tinnemann et al 2012;Pfeiffer et al 2015;Vlaholias et al 2015;Baglioni et al 2017).…”

“…The critique addresses barriers to food access, food being unequally distributed, food provided not being nutritious or not meeting cultural needs, using food pantries as a shameful experience, and food pantry services as being less efficient than governmental support such as food stamps. Further studies focused on food insecurity (Davis and Tarasuk 1994;DeLind 1994;Anderson and Cook 1999;Gareau 2004;Vitiello et al 2015) as well as the perspective of donors and their motivations to cooperate with foodbanks (Lorenz 2012;Vlaholias et al 2015;Gruber et al 2016). Research on the volunteer perspective has been limited to demographic profiles and motivations .…”

Do food donation tax credits for farmers address food loss/waste and food insecurity? A case study from Ontario

“…While many organizations attempt to address FLW and food insecurity together through food rescue, in reality, the relationship between these two issues is complex. On the one hand, donating surplus food to food banks is widely accepted as a means to reduce FLW while alleviating hunger (Thyberg and Tonjes 2016;Lee et al 2017;Stuart 2009;Bilska et al 2016;Vlaholias et al 2015). This approach is highlighted in the USEPA's food recovery hierarchy that prioritizes rescuing food as a FLW strategy second only to reducing surplus in the first place.…”

“…This divergence of views on the relationship between FLW and food insecurity is reflected in the literature. Some authors support rescuing food and redistributing it to the hungry 'in the meantime' until there are major changes to social policies (Stuart 2009;Bilska et al 2016;Vlaholias et al 2015), while others stand firmly against conflating the two issues and trying to solve hunger with 'waste' food (Riches and Silvasti 2014;Tarasuk et al 2014c;Riches 2011;Tarasuk and Eakin 2005). Divergent views on connecting FLW and food insecurity have also been observed among food security policy actors.…”