Reduced food wastage in grocery stores - measures and their impact on economy and environment
Last changed: 05 November 2021
Waste of food is a large source of unnecessary environmental impact from the food chain. When products are lost in the late parts of the food chain, as when losses occur in shops and households, it will have a substantially larger impact than if the product is lost in earlier parts of the chain since many more processes have been in vain.
Through life cycle assessments it becomes clear that losses have a large part of an agricultural products total environmental impact. The knowledge of the effects of different measures to reduce food loss is small. Such knowledge is a prerequisite for effective priorities of different possible measures. The need for knowledge of how to avoid waste of food is larger than the issue of how to deal with the food once it already is at waste.
The purpose of this project was to stimulate more sustainable food consumption by lowering the loss of food at the store level in the food chain, and thereby to reduce the total loss of food from primary production to final consumption.
The project was run in 2010-2013 and was funded under the call for Sustainable Store, a collaboration between FORMAS and Trade Development Council.
Publications from the project
- Retail Food Wastage: a Case Study Approach to Quantities and Causes.
- Food losses in six Swedish retail stores: Wastage of fruit and vegetables in relation to quantities delivered
- Food loss in the retail sector – a study of food waste in six grocery stores
- From Loss to Gain – How to Reduce In-Store Food Waste
- When food turns into waste - a study on practices and handling of losses of fruit and vegetables and meat in Willys Södertälje Weda
- Food Wastage – to lose the big chunk after picking the crumbs
Material from the closing seminar (that was held in Swedish) of the project
- Matsvinn i butik - vad som slängs och varför (Presentation vid Handelns Utredningsinstitut, 25 oktober 2013)
- Populärvetenskaplig sammanfattning av forskningsprojektet.
- Inspelning från seminariet.
- Ingrid Strid - Introduktion till forskningsprojektet och till matsvinnsproblematiken globalt och i Sverige.
- Mattias Eriksson och Ingrid Strid - Hur stort är svinnet, vad är det som svinnas och varför?
- Mikael Hernant - Hur påverkas matsvinnet av kampanjer och andra åtgärder i butik?
- Charlotte Lagerberg Fogelberg - Konsumentattityder till svinn och svinnåtgärder.
- Ingrid Strid - Potentiella åtgärder för att minska svinnet.
- Mattias Eriksson - Ger ekologiska varor mer svinn?
- Eva Eiderström - Ekologisk produktion behövs för en hållbar utveckling.