Feasibility Study of the Food-sharing Model in the Context of Sustainable Economic Development

Abstract

The amount of both food supply and food waste can always reflect the economic level of nations, but few types of research done by scholars focused on the relationship between food and economic growth. Many economic growth models are related to the relationship between economic policies, climate changes, labour and economic growth, actually many factors such as food waste and food supply have potential relevance to economic growth. To explore and verify this viewpoint logically, this paper constructs a new Solow model based on the traditional Solow model and the Cobb-Douglas production function. The data of France (a developed country) are selected to analyse the correlation between the amount of food waste and economic growth. The least-square method OLS was used to fit the model function. the result indicates that there exists a positive relationship between the amount of food waste in France and gross domestic product in France. Based on this result, we propose two business models according to food sharing one starts with food wasted by hotel catering businesses, the other is person-to-person food-sharing trading. This business model will not only reduce the problem of food waste but also contribute to the development of economic sustainability.