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The purpose of this paper is to define the sustainability attributes of frozen and fresh food consumption in a typical household. The reason for writing this paper is that food preservation is often overlooked when developing sustainability strategies.

This study uses established carbon footprint data for specific food types and consumer survey data to determine how consumers use fresh and frozen products in the home. Consumption and waste data for 83 households was obtained using a combination of narrative and graphical association questions.

The results show greenhouse gas emissions associated with a diets containing frozen food are reduced because 47 per cent less frozen foods is wasted as compared to fresh foods with a typical household wasting 10.4 per cent of fresh food and 5.9 per cent frozen food.

This research has highlighted the importance of understanding the waste impacts of catering and food service consumption outside the home.

This research will guide future product development for frozen foods with regard to dietary planning and portion control.

The cost and sustainability benefits of meal planning are identified and these will inform policy making and education to improve dietary choices.

This work extends the scope of current consumer surveys that assess quality, value and taste attributes to sustainability criteria and it will enable collaboration between fresh and frozen product categories to deliver sustainable dietary options.

In the age of “big data,” one of the most important capabilities that differentiates the winners from the losers in the intensely competitive grocery market is how successfully a firm can harness its vast amounts of shopper data to become more shopper-centric. Grocery retailers struggle with how to manage the tremendous amount of data available to them and best leverage their frequent shopper data to derive insights. These data also present an opportunity for academic research on decision-making and evaluation of strategic initiatives. This chapter discusses three case studies that illustrate the various capabilities of frequent shopper data in generating shopper insights. Specifically, using frequent shopper data for millions of shoppers, the three case studies demonstrate how frequent shopper data can be used as an important information asset for understanding differences and similarities among different shopper groups (Case Study 1), as a means to assess the effectiveness of store redesigns/environment changes (Case Study 2), and as a key tool for evaluating program success (Case Study 3). The chapter concludes with a discussion of how successful collaboration between practitioners and academics can be a boon to both business success and academic research.

More than 50 per cent of all German households own a freezing appliance and so far the market of frozen foods is constantly increasing (1 per cent from 2017 to 2018). Despite frozen foods playing an important role in our everyday life, little is known about the consumer’s habits at home. The purpose of this paper is to uncover gaps in the knowledge about consumer behaviour when handling frozen food. Moreover, the impact of consumers on the quality of frozen products should be assessed.

A representative online survey was carried out to investigate different aspects of consumer behaviour concerning frozen foods. Respondents (n=2,053) were questioned about their general handling habits regarding eight different food groups: fruit, vegetables, meat, fish, bread, pastries, ready-to-eat meals and leftovers. The focus was on freezing, pre-handling, packaging and thawing – depending on the age of those questioned and combined with best practice advice regarding quality storage of frozen products.

Most Germans have the opportunity to freeze food and keep their freezers full or medium loaded. Older participants act more efficiently towards quality storage, but more education about freezing and frozen storage would be generally helpful to maintain quality of frozen foods and increase utilisation of freezers, using their full preservation potential.

No open questions were asked due to the scope of more than 2,000 participants, which, in retrospect, would have been instructive.

Consumer handling of frozen food in Germany was investigated in a representative way for the first time, covering age groups from 18 to 69 and household sizes from 1 to >4 people, focussing on eight major food groups.

Bread waste is one of the largest contributors to the environmental footprint of supermarkets, mostly because of the short shelf life of fresh bread. This study examined a possible solution: offering frozen bread with a considerably longer shelf life. Professional freezing of bread can preserve its quality better than freezing at home. In introducing frozen bread, supermarkets can communicate either a high construal social benefit (food waste reduction) or a low construal personal benefit (product quality).

An online experiment (n = 367) with a three group between subjects design was used. Dutch participants saw an offering of frozen bread accompanied by (1) a communication message about food waste, (2) a communication message about product quality, or (3) no communication message (control condition).

In line with expectations, emphasizing food waste reduction influenced general attitudes toward frozen bread and the bakery department more strongly than the benefit of higher product quality, while the opposite was true for purchase intentions.

Retailers who include frozen bread in their assortment have to make a trade-off between especially stimulating consumer attitudes toward the bakery department by focusing on a food waste reduction message, or especially stimulating sales by focusing on a quality message.

This study provides new insights into the effects of benefit communication on attitudes and purchase intentions. The results show that these effects differ for attitudes and intentions, depending on the communication message.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the relationship between food preservation and reducing consumer waste is of value in developing sustainable meal options. The research reports insights into Austrian marketplace for frozen and fresh foods that have been obtained from a consumer survey.

The consumer survey methodologies indicate how preservation can change meal planning and lower food waste across frozen and fresh and ambient food purchases using freezing preservation methods.

The results show food waste can be reduced by six-fold when frozen foods are compared with fresh foods.

This study highlights the requirement for a greater understanding of the probability that specific foods will be wasted with respect to the frequency of purchase. This is a limitation of the current study that has been investigated by other researchers.

This research has enabled the identification of different food waste amounts for different food product categories. The data presented could be used to guide food product development so that less consumer waste is produced.

The research suggests a decision matrix approach can be used to can guide new product development and a model of this matrix is presented so that it may provide fit-for-purpose food preservation options for consumers.

This paper will continue to highlight the overlooked value of food preservation during processing and manufacturing of foods and their preparation in households.

Another Christmas month is upon us, following it seems quickly on others that have been. Such is the relativity of Time, it is not yesteryear, but could be yester‐month or even yester‐week. The seasons pass like youth, all too soon. Our minds return to other Christmas months of yore — “Memories are like Christmas roses!”, the old saying goes. The children, singing much‐loved hymns and carols, happy family settings, a birth, christening, so much to look forward to in the new year. There are not always such happy memories, but memories just the same — Christmas in war‐time, Earth's joys growing dimmer each year, change and decay, life drawing to a close for many a soul; old folk tend to see Christmas as a time of passing, of leaving the world behind.

In this special market analysis report, we take a look at the burgeoning home freezer business — an estimated 11 per cent home ownership by the end of this year. This has stimulated the development of home freezer centres, selling frozen food in excess of £20 million. Multiples and supermarkets, as one might expect, are reacting promptly. The trend towards less frequent shopping plus likely development of off‐centre superstores, argues favourably for the long‐term prospects.

Summarizes legislation which determines specific temperature requirements for refrigerated foods in the United Kingdom pre – and post‐1990. Before 1990 there were relatively few specific national controls, although controls existed for certain animal‐based products such as meat and meat products destined for intra‐Community trade. Post‐1990 came the Food Safety Act 1990 and Food Hygiene (Amendment) Regulations 1990, which have had most effect on the chill chain from production through to retail sale, and in the catering sector. Temperature controls have been strengthened by monitoring and systems of record‐keeping. The other source of legislation has been through the implementation of single European market measures, many of which will come into force on 1 January 1993.

Investigates whether consumers′ time availability is an important segmentation variable in the convenience and fast‐food markets. Very time‐poor, somewhat time‐poor, and not time‐poor consumers are compared, and three types of food are examined: fast foods, frozen dinners, and ready‐to‐eat foods. For weekday dinners, similarities and differences between the three segments are investigated with respect to usage of each type of food, importance of benefits sought in a weekday dinner, and perceptions of each type of food. Managerial implications of differences between segments and of overall patterns are discussed.

What a terrible word for a title; but its intentional horribleness emphasises the fact that the arrival and proliferation of supermarkets in every High Street constitutes nothing less than a revolution in our way of life. A whole new technology — food technology — has been harnessed to the concept of mass selling to produce a completely new technique of food retailing. The extent of this revolution can be gauged from the estimate that soon three‐quarters of all food sales will be from self‐service stores and supermarkets.