The role of food waste hierarchy in addressing policy and research: A comparative analysis

Giordano, Claudia; Falasconi, Luca; Cicatiello, Clara; Pancino, Barbara

doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.119617

Cited by 55 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…Indeed, a study conducted in Germany with semi-structured interviews reported high engagement of retailers in the redistribution of surplus food [49]. This is a lost opportunity for the Italian retailers, considering that a law against food waste approved by the Italian Parliament in 2016 mentions, among its main objectives, an aim to promote food donation by retail stores through strong economic incentives (e.g., waste tax reduction) [23]. More effort should be put on promoting the benefits of this law for retailers who donate: the involvement of local municipalities is also crucial at this stage, as they are responsible for the waste tax management.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

et al. 2020

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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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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

et al. 2020

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“…Furthermore, measures which prohibit the wastage of food like in France could be adopted. Since 2016, supermarkets in France are obligated to sign agreements with charities to donate food that would otherwise be thrown away [8] (p. 22) [123]. Yet, a petition to the German Bundestag calling for a ban on the disposal of food has so far been unanswered [124,125] and attempts to legalise dumpster diving were unsuccessful by now.…”

Section: Dumpster Diving Disposal Bans and Foodsharingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition, initiatives aiming at avoiding food waste are supported financially by a new fund. Additionally, these measures are supported by e.g., informational measures such as awareness campaigns and educational programs for schools [9,123].…”

Section: (Fiscal) Incentives For Food Donationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Challenges of Food Waste Governance: An Assessment of European Legislation on Food Waste and Recommendations for Improvement by Economic Instruments

Garske

Heyl²,

Ekardt

et al. 2020

Land

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Food is wasted throughout the entire food supply chain—from agricultural production to the household level. This has negative impacts on natural resources and the environment. At the same time, food waste is undermining the global target of food security. In turn, reducing food waste can minimise the environmental effects of agriculture on climate, biodiversity, soils, water bodies and the atmosphere. All of this is reflected in the fact that food waste is subject to various legal acts of the European Union and that it is also a major subject in the new EU Farm to Fork Strategy from May 2020. Supported by an analysis of the diffuse empirical data on food waste, the purpose of this article is to analyse the current EU legislation on food waste and its reduction to answer the following research questions: How is food waste integrated into European policies? What is the impact of European legislation on food waste? Is European legislation sufficient to trigger not only food waste reduction but also comprehensive changes in the agricultural and food sector to support global climate and environmental targets as set in the Paris Agreement and the Convention on Biological Diversity? Which instruments are the most suitable to do so? Methodologically, a qualitative governance analysis is applied. It is found that relevant legal acts for governing food waste include circular economy and waste law, the Common Agricultural Policy and the Common Fisheries Policy as well as food law, while international environmental targets serve as an overarching measure for governance analysis. The legal analysis shows that existing legislation lacks steering effect to significantly reduce food waste. To overcome current governance problems, the article introduces economic policy instruments. It is concluded that quantity control focusing on overarching parameters such as fossil fuels or animal-derived products has not only the potential to reduce food waste by increasing food prices but can also address the multiple interlinked environmental challenges of the agricultural and food sector.

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“…It provided a pyramid of priorities for managing waste reduction, encouraging member states to develop specific programs to this end. It included the following priorities: (a) prevention; (b) preparing for reuse; (c) recycling; (d) other recovery, e.g., energy recovery; (e) disposal [22]. However, this pyramid presented several issues, mainly due to an overlap between measures such as prevention and reduction, preparing for reuse, and reuse as well as the measure of reuse that was included in the definition of prevention [23].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Both laws address only the first two levels of the FW pyramid with a strong emphasis on the second layer (e.g., re-use for human consumption). In both cases, prevention measures are weak and mainly related to communication and awareness-raising activities, not introducing any structural changes to the food system upstream to avoid the generation of FW [22,27,28].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Hierarchical Pyramid for Food Waste Based on a Social Innovation Perspective

Lombardi

Costantino²

2021

Sustainability

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Food waste (FW) represents one of the greatest concerns facing mankind today; thus, the UN Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development establishes that it must be halved by 2030. European Union legislators have taken part in this debate by publishing Directive 2018/851 to monitor the FW reduction goals, according to the waste hierarchical pyramid approach. At present, there are several proposed FW hierarchical pyramids, but these do not regard the associations between the level of waste-tackling strategies and social innovation (SI) models. Thus, the paper aims to build a hierarchical pyramid that considers, for each step of the food-supply chain and each level of the pyramid, all the FW social innovation models. A qualitative analysis of academic studies, institutional documents, and specific projects has been conducted. The results confirm the gap in the scientific literature and the lack of a systematic classification of SI activities to reduce FW. Furthermore, current SI practices are actually more focused on the human reuse of FW than on prevention, whereas SI models based on prevention might return the FWL issue to its systematic dimension. This information will help policymakers to reconsider the structural causes of FW inside the agro-food system, and not only its final consequences.

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The role of food waste hierarchy in addressing policy and research: A comparative analysis

Cited by 55 publications

References 14 publications

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

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

Challenges of Food Waste Governance: An Assessment of European Legislation on Food Waste and Recommendations for Improvement by Economic Instruments

A Hierarchical Pyramid for Food Waste Based on a Social Innovation Perspective

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