Search results

Food waste is acknowledged as a major environmental issue, but the retail sector has only begun to recognise this in recent years. The purpose of this paper is to answer when, how and why food waste became important for retail in Sweden.

A mixed-methods approach was used that included a literature review, quantitative data from retail, field studies, 11 interviews and a media study consisting of newspaper articles spanning 10 years. The combined methods provided qualitative rigor and saturation.

Results show that the increased interest in the issue stems from several factors working together. These factors include the availability of data, the formation of actor networks working together, increased societal environmental awareness, attitude change amongst consumers and retail, and the role of media as an actor and a method for making the issue visible. In addition, results show how the issue surfaced further, as more data became available. Findings suggest that food waste became an environmental issue, and later, the focus shifted to finding solutions for retail.

The results highlight the importance for policy to implement preventive measures and strengthen incentives for retail to work with reducing food waste. Such incentives should target cheap food, education, routines, legislation and business models throughout the food chain.

This research aims to explore retail managers' views on how food waste (FW) management activities contribute to sustainable value creation and how the customer value proposition (CVP) for a given food retailer interacts with their approaches to FW management.

A three-stage exploratory qualitative approach to data collection and analysis was adopted, involving in-depth interviews with retail managers, documentary analysis of multiple years of relevant corporate reports and email validation by seven major UK grocery retailers. Thematic content analysis supplemented by word similarity cluster analysis, two-step cluster analysis and crisp-set qualitative comparative analysis was undertaken.

FW management practices have been seen by retail managers to contribute to all forms of sustainable value creation, as waste reduction minimises environmental impact, saves costs and/or serves social needs, whilst economic value creation lies at the heart of retail FW management. However, retail operations are also framed by CVP and size of a retailer that enable or inhibit the adoption of certain FW management practices. Low-price retailers were more likely to adopt practices enabling them to save costs. Complicated cost-incurring solutions to FW were more likely to be adopted by retailers associated with larger size, high quality and a range of services.

This study is the first of its kind to empirically explore retail managers' perception of sustainable value creation through FW management activities and to provide empirical evidence of the linkages between retail CVP and sustainable value creation in the context of retail FW management.