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Creating systems designs by considering a balance between economic, environmental, and social effects is significant in today's sustainability concern. Sustainability has become an emerging topic, growing concerns and attention for companies. Especially companies operating on a global scale aim to develop strategies for sustainable supply chain management. When the supply chain is a food chain, that concern increases exponentially and sustainable management of the chain becomes a critical challenge requiring the development and implementation of innovative practices by all stages within value chains. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), a significant amount of food is wasted or lost in the journey from farm to fork. This waste affects the global economy, food availability, as well as the environment negatively. In this work, we, therefore, focus on addressing these aspects by searching how food waste or food loss could be reduced throughout a supply chain network. We provide solution ways for the food waste/loss reduction obtained from current works in literature.

Over the past decade, there has been a significant increase in interest about fraud in food supply chain. Victims of food fraud and counterfeiting can be different actors in the supply chain: distributors, retailers and, most importantly, customers. Victims of food fraud face not only economic losses, but also health and safety risks when handling or consuming fraudulent products. The aim of this paper is to present the situation regarding counterfeiting and fraud in the food supply chain from a theoretical and practical point of view. The attitudes and opinions of consumers, experts in the field and retailers on the occurrence of food fraud and counterfeiting were explored. The results of an online survey of 326 consumers in Croatia showed that their awareness of food fraud is low. Most of them are only partially familiar with food fraud or do not know anything about this issue. The respondents are most familiar with mislabelling of organic products, meat packaging date fraud, and misuse of geographical indications (PDO/PGI). Consumers have low trust in all organisations that should protect them from food fraud (e.g. Croatian national institutions and authorities). A survey with eight food experts (olive oil, wine, milk and dairy products, honey, strong alcoholic beverages) found that they very rarely encounter food fraud in their work, usually two or more times a year. Retailers are aware of the existence of food fraud, but still do not take measures beyond the usual level in their quality assurance systems. To raise awareness of food fraud, education of all stakeholders by relevant institutions is needed.

This chapter presents a typology, a comprehensive overview and a deconstruction of food counterfeits. In this chapter, common targets, defined by type of commodity, supply chain (node) and location, are identified based on incident reports and vulnerability assessments in global food supply chains. As a second step, the effects of counterfeiting on brand owners, consumers and governments are detailed, which is followed by the characterisation of the groups of buyers and suppliers. To comprehend the counterfeiting process and its most important factors in greater detail, counterfeiting is disassembled into and analysed for existing motivational drivers, opportunities and control measures. Lastly, various strategies are proposed to deter counterfeiting and disrupt these practices.

The paper deals with the transformation of local agrofood systems, in the context of the turn to “the economy of qualities” and the rural development paradigm. We will discuss a case study from Italy, specifically an agreement between Slow Food and Coop Italia concerning the Ark of Taste's Presidia, aiming at the protection of typical products and food traditions.

The agreement is analysed as a change of strategy, implying a transformation of the local agrofood system from “local production for local consumers” to “local production for distant consumers”. The change is substantial and implies a restructuring of the entire local food network.

The complex value chain that facilitates local food production and consumption includes purveyors positioned across a range of marketspaces who through the various ways they present and sell their products help create and convey the meaning of “local food.” Limited governance within local food systems (LFSs) and a lack of consensus on the definition of “local food” provide purveyors with notable latitude in how they frame the meaning of “local” in the food products they produce, market, and sell. Consequently, the expansion of food products that are framed as being “local” within conventional marketspaces threatens to convolute the meaning and representation of local food within specific LFSs and across the broader local food movement (LFM). Here, I use a structured photo analysis design to explore the elements that influence the visual representation of “local food” by purveyors within five farmers’ markets and five grocery stores located across the Southern Arizona LFS (SALFS). I consider the farmers’ markets to be alternative marketspaces and the grocery stores to be conventional marketspaces. The data consist of 683 original photos taken of local food framing practices within the farmers’ markets and grocery stores and extensive field notes captured throughout multiple direct observations at each market space. My exploration is guided by a theoretical framework composed of constructs specific to institutional logic, product framing, and taste regimes. The findings illustrate how local food framing practices across alternative and mainstream marketspaces foster a local food taste regime that fails to convey the fundamental principles and values of the LFM. Recommendations for both practice and research are developed from the findings.

The chapter investigates factors shaping convenience orientation in the 21st century as well as present-day barriers to the consumption of food and non-food convenience products.

A qualitative research approach with two kinds of data triangulation is used. Multiple key informants (marketing managers and consumers) allow a consideration from different angles and multiple methodologies (in-depth and focus group interviews) help to gain deeper insights into the topic.

Convenience orientation comprises dimensions that were previously not considered in marketing research. In addition to the known factors time and effort saving, consumers buy convenience products because of the flexibility they provide. Moreover, concerns for health, environment, and quality are important barriers that prevent consumers from buying and consuming convenience products.

Our results suggest that factors increasing and decreasing convenience consumption depend at least partly on the product category. Future research should integrate various other product groups to further explore domain-specific convenience orientation.

The conceptualization of convenience orientation offers important implications for new product development as well as for the design of the marketing mix. For instance, existing barriers could be overcome by improving transparency or meeting environmental concerns.

The chapter reveals the factors shaping the consumption of convenience products. The presented findings are important to academics researching convenience consumption and practitioners producing and distributing convenience products.

Food fraud has vexed the food industry throughout history. Today, it is still a present and multidimensional problem affecting all parts of the food industry. Food fraud encompasses adulteration, counterfeit, diversion of products outside of intended markets, over-run, simulation, tampering, theft, misrepresentation or mislabelling, malicious poisoning, bioterrorism or sabotage. It is difficult to detect and trace the source of unintentional contamination and related food safety concerns and even more difficult to detect instances of product fraud. The most common product categories that are associated with food fraud are olive oil, milk and milk-based products, fish and seafood, wine, tea, honey and organic foods. On the other hand, knowledge on what influences the occurrence of fraud in food supply chain is limited. The main research aim in this chapter is to determine key factors which influence the occurrence of food fraud within the organic supply chain, and how these factors differ between various organic marketing channel members. We focus on the application of qualitative methods for detecting key food fraud aspects including broad practical areas, such as opportunities and motivations to commit fraud, as well as the presence or lack of suitable food fraud control measures. These three key aspects are assessed to identify the perceived fraud vulnerability of the organic supply chain. The research is conducted with special attention to the context of the transition economies, since these markets require a new, comprehensive strategic approach to preventing and detecting food fraud and adulteration. The entire analysis is conducted on the Serbian market.

This chapter investigates how food microenterprises leverage cultural representations to develop the tourism offering of a place. Food tourism is considered to provide visitors with cultural experiences of place. In a homogenized world, authentic food characteristics enable tourists to have unique food experiences according to the place. This case study considers the way in which food microenterprises in Wales and Brittany leverage characteristics of place to develop food tourism experiences. Following a mixed methods design, findings show differences in the food tourism offering of Wales and Brittany, and differing levels of awareness of each food destination. Findings also point to the need for clear food tourism strategies, to enable places to fully exploit their unique resources in the food tourism offering.

This chapter examines the role of stakeholders, cocreation, and pro-environmental behaviors in Google’s efforts to reduce the environmental impact of their food waste. It describes several different strategies that the company undertook and the outcomes of those efforts. These efforts ranged from working with suppliers and employees to use food that was normally wasted to implementing a waste measuring and feedback system. The case highlights the challenges, current impact, and risks of the different strategies.

The chapter covers the theories and models of stakeholder influence on sustainability, new product development through cocreation, and pro-environmental behaviors; it applies these concepts to Google’s food waste program.

The results of the study contribute to the frameworks on cocreation and stakeholder management to include ideas for encouraging pro-environmental behavior through various social practices (measuring and monitoring waste, building supply chain partnerships, and cocreating new products with stakeholders).

The findings of this chapter will help other companies with ideas for successfully reducing food waste and its environmental impact by illustrating new ideas for engaging stakeholders in the supply chain.