The wasteful management of food resources is an important phenomenon characteristic to both developing and developed countries. According to the FAO, about one third of the food produced in the world for human consumption is lost or wasted – approximately 1.3 billion tons, which amounts to roughly USD680 billion in industrialized countries and USD310 billion in developing countries (FAO, 2011). Food wasted in Latin America alone could feed 300 million people. At the same time almost 1 billion people stay undernourished and another 1 billion suffer from hunger [1].
The issue of food waste has relevance from several different perspectives including food security, environmental governance, resource efficiency, hazards to health and equity between different social groups (FUSIONS, 2016). As a result, programs aiming at the reduction of the amount of food waste take many different forms and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations addresses the issue under at least three different domains: poverty, hunger and sustainable consumption and production.
While policymaking has been active around the world in raising awareness and promoting best practices, its success to date has been limited. Meanwhile, the fast development of the information and communication sector has led to the emergence of a number of new, innovative business models, which have the potential to handle social and environmental issues, such as the problem of food waste.
Our research aims at identifying and analyzing innovative economic and social practices in the food sector. An inventory of different approaches to the utilization of food waste will be introduced, as well as the results of an analysis of these initiatives from both a sustainability and business model perspective.
We evaluate private, voluntary and combinatory initiatives based on the experiences of existing recent examples using mainstream management theories (such as the resource based view of the firm and transaction cost theory) to draw conclusions regarding their long term viability. Initiatives such as the Leftover Swap [2] (a smartphone app to help barter or give away food leftovers), Foodsharing.de (established in 2012 in Germany and run with the participation of individuals, supermarkets, restaurants, bakeries, and food stalls, to be closed by Berlin authorities in 2016 [3]), the solidarity fridges [4] in Galdakao, and various global food bank initiatives [5] including one by ABACO (La Asociación de Bancos de Alimentos de Colombia) [6]’ will be examined regarding their environmental and social impacts. Our research includes both European and Latin American examples and differences and similarities will be pointed out.
Conclusions resulting from the research will cover suggestions for policymakers regarding the promotion of social innovation in the field as well as advice to practitioners based on failure and success stories.
References
FAO, 2011. Global food losses and food waste – Extent, causes and prevention
Stenmarck, Å., C. Jensen, T. Quested and G. Moates, 2016. Estimates of European food waste levels, FUSIONS
Zilahy, G., 2016. Sustainable Business Models – What Do Management Theories Say? Budapest Management Journal
[1] http://www.un.org/sustainabled...
[2] http://www.npr.org/sections/al...
[3] http://www.dw.com/en/food-shar...
[4] http://www.dw.com/en/in-spain-...
[5] https://www.foodbanking.org/
[6] https://www.vice.com/es_co/art...
