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

Abstract

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.

Integrating decision support tools into businesses for sustainable development: A paradoxical approach to address the food waste challenge

“…Empirical studies highlight the problem of tackling FLW as it conflicts with other business goals (Cicatiello et al, 2020; Messner et al, 2021; Richards et al, 2020). An alternative business strategy requires leaders to effectively respond to and seek affirmative actions and possibilities for understanding how individuals and teams can best contribute to complex sustainability challenges (Figge et al, 2021; Zhang & Han, 2019).…”

Avoidance of Food Waste from a Grocery Retail Store Owner’s Perspective

“…The causes of food waste and prevention strategies in the grocery retail sector are manifold. Obtained from a literature review (see Table 1), the main causes of food waste in the grocery retail sector from a managerial perspective are linked to undesirable consumer behavior, poor consumer awareness, and retail owners financial goals [15,[17][18][19]. As a result, conventional retailers do not list, or they exclude agricultural products with visual impairments from their product range, as they could provoke negative consumer reactions leading to additional food waste [20].…”

“…Managers have difficulty predicting and controlling incoming and outgoing goods to quite accurate levels, especially for food products with short shelf life and low inventory turnover rates [2,21]. In addition, some causes of food waste at the store level are hard to control for, such as weather or unexpected drops in demand [17]. Here, accurate demand forecasting and recording procedures in the store, that is to say the right food waste management and assessment can help to prevent food waste generation [23].…”

“…In order to understand these causes and prevention strategies of food waste in retail, it is important to look at the in-store food waste as well as the management involved in the grocery retail stores [12]. Store managers play an important role in food waste avoidance in the grocery retail sector [12][13][14][15][16] since they are the ones responsible for food waste generation due to their managerial decision power [12,17]. This finding is based on food waste investigations in retail by researchers who relied mainly on employed retail managers as a source of information [15,16,18,19].…”

Reducing Food Waste at Retail Stores—An Explorative Study

“…As a result, customers become less forgiving if products are allegedly older or are of lower quality [18]. However, of course, highly perishable products contribute to food waste far more than preserved food (see, e.g., [16,[19][20][21]). According to our direct information from retailers, the share of food waste is up to 25% in these product categories.…”