Every organisation wants to improve itself in new projects by using previous projects as a reflection.
Through the investigation on the opportunities and challenges in theory and in practice, similarities and differences have occurred. The information on the theoretical part is found by doing desk research on different worldwide organisations and on food waste principles. The information on the part in practice is found by conducting the interviews. In theory, decision-making is done easily but how is this translated into practice?
Challenges Real-Life Challenges
Challenges in real-life are discovered through six interviews with the private sector. The real-life challenges include that it is important to get rid of competition between food producers. This causes that food becomes more expensive and that the “ugly” foods are discarded. In addition, food is a number one priority. For this reason, food should not be discarded by prioritizing the prettiest ones and the prizing systems should be abolished. Companies do have reward systems, however, these reward systems should reward on growth instead of rewarding on the least amount of food wasted.
In addition, it is seen that producers produce linearly however, consumers do not consume linearly.
This is where Wastewatchers comes in and supports companies in adapting to the market demand.
The economic stimulator to prevent food waste should be bigger than wasting food. Moreover, food pricing has to change. Therefore, multiple factors should be taken into account: the production process, the expiration date and emissions. The expiration date has to be renewed; however, if this is defined as looking at the colour or smell, it happens that people discard food too early. Finally, consumer behaviour. Often food is discarded because parts of foods are seen as inedible (the stem of a broccoli). Therefore, the principle Nose to Tail has to be introduced within the entire food industry.
Consumer behaviour needs to change, but is difficult in practice because therefore the challenge is;
how to change the mindset of consumers? Another challenge that comes with the mindset of consumers is, that supermarket shelves always have to be filled and that it seems unimaginable to have empty shelves in a supermarket, however, this will lead to overproduction and eventually to food waste instead.
Potential Challenges
The challenges that are discovered through desk research in fighting food waste are: the lack of planning when preparing meals (consumer or hospitality level), the environmental harm, and the fact that campaigns do not actually influence customers. In order to reduce the amount of food waste, consumers and the hospitality sector have to start planning meals and increase the food knowledge before visiting the supermarket. However, this is a behavioural phenomenon, therefore, it is hard to
influence. This problem is battled with companies such as Wastewatchers, which adapts to the fluctuating market.
Another unavoidable challenge is the environmental harm that occurs when food is produced. It already appears within the primary steps in the production chain. The amount of CO2 that comes from food waste is equal to 6.8 billion tons (The World Counts, 2021). This has partly to do with the food safety protocol; which leads to food waste by disapproving foods because of shape or colour. In addition, it is proven that campaigning on the negative impacts of food waste does not influence consumers. Instead, something has to be done on the implementation of improved packaging of products (Stöckli et Al., 2018). Moreover, the fact that food waste occurs in different stages of production, makes the fight against food waste more challenging. To solve all these challenges, the long-term strategy of culture has to change drastically. This will not be an easy task, because changing a culture is a stubborn phenomenon.
Opportunities Real-life Opportunities
First of all, the presented awards between supermarkets for the best fruit or vegetable section should be dismissed. Instead of a pricing system, a reward system for managers should be implemented.
Managers receive a bonus if targets within the company are achieved, including food waste.
Companies with an existing reward system for their employees have to change to a reward system in which food waste is the central focus.
Another opportunity is to create rational thinking. Rational thinking starts with consciousness and could be achieved by educating cooks and setting them as an example. In addition, rational thinking is achieved through posters, stickers on food, and an automatic price reduction, also called the electronic price tag; the nearer the expiration date, the cheaper the product. This will lead to a full “Nose to Tail”
use of products. Rational thinking within companies should be rewarded through the amount of food a company wastes. It will influence the mindset of consumers; shelves in supermarkets could be empty, and certain products could not be available. According to Bas de Cloo, more awareness will lead to more sustainable food trends.
When looking into expiration dates, the commodity act has to be reformed as well. It has to reform from a set expiration date to an aimed expiration date. To support food preservation, packaging of products has to be improved. This could lead to the stretch of shelf life of products, inducing that food trends will take a sustainable turn. It would be an opportunity to put the Voedselwarenautoriteit on these responsibilities in practice and turning it into the overarching organisation of the food waste problem: being in charge of food safety policies, maintain the relationships between different
ministries and stimulate fighting food waste within municipalities. This will lead to a tighter form of collaboration on food waste which will achieve less overproduction of foods.
Potential Opportunities
There are multiple opportunities in order to fight food waste. According to Recommendations for Action in Food Waste Prevention (2019), it is important that businesses are motivated to adopt measures against food waste within the operations. Therefore it would be a good opportunity if SMART (Specific, Meaningful, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) objectives and KPIs and GDIs are implemented. It is crucial that small businesses should be supported to adopt these measures in order to increase capacity.
In addition, it would be an opportunity to implement the cook-to-order preparation; to start preparing meals when it is actually ordered. This is a good way to prevent left-overs from being discarded.
Moreover, the size of the plate matters. The smaller the plate, the fuller it seems (Reynolds et Al., 2019). Food packaging is crucial in order to protect and preserve food and to stretch the shelf life of products. The Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda of the European Technology Platform for Life recommends modified atmosphere technologies and intelligent solutions to keep fresh foods longer (FoodDrinkEurope, 2021). This will lead to less food wastage, which results in a slowdown of climate change.
When fighting food waste, involvement of all actors is crucial. Therefore, opportunities are displayed within the MLG process; if there is more MLG, there is more collaboration between all actors (the governmental and the non-governmental actors). Therefore, the concept “MLG” is key to an improved collaboration between practice and theory.