Supermarket food waste Prevention and management with the focus on reduced waste for reduced carbon footprint

Food waste occurs along the entire food supply chain and gives rise to great financial losses and waste of natural resources. The retail stage of the supply chain contributes significant masses of waste. Causes of this waste need to be identified before potential waste reduction measures can be designed, tested and evaluated. Therefore this thesis quantified retail food waste and evaluated selected prevention and valorisation measures, in order to determine how the carbon footprint of food can be reduced by decreasing food waste in supermarkets. Food waste was quantified in six supermarkets in the Uppsala-Stockholm region of Sweden. Data were recorded over five years between 2010 and 2014 by the retail company in a daily waste recording procedure. In addition, suppliers contributed data on deliveries and rejections. The main suppliers contributed data on wholesale pack size and shelf-life, which allowed the relationship between these and their effect on waste to be analysed. Life cycle assessment was used to investigate the carbon footprint associated with production and distribution of food and managing the waste. The wasted mass was dominated by fresh fruit and vegetables and rejection on delivery was the main reason for this food being wasted. Expressed in terms of carbon footprint rather than mass, the relative importance of meat waste increased and that of fruit and vegetables decreased. A reduction in storage temperature to prolong shelf-life proved to have the potential to reduce waste in all supermarket departments studied. However, when the temperature reduction was achieved by extended use of the current electricity mix, a net lowering of carbon footprint was only found for the meat department. For food products with a high carbon footprint, e.g. beef, there was much greater potential to lower the carbon footprint by preventing waste through source reduction than by upgrading the waste management option. If food waste cannot be prevented, donation to charity and anaerobic digestion of the waste were found to have the greatest potential to reduce the carbon footprint, depending on the substituted bread value and biogas potential, respectively. This follows the EU waste hierarchy, although there are variations from the trend of more favourable options at higher levels of the hierarchy.

[1]  Per Fahlén,et al.  Vertical display cabinets without and with doors - a comparison of measurements in a laboratory and in a supermarket , 2010 .

[2]  C. Sundberg,et al.  Can carbon footprint serve as an indicator of the environmental impact of meat production , 2013 .

[3]  Fredrik Wikström,et al.  A life cycle perspective on environmental effects of customer focused packaging development , 2008 .

[4]  Martine Rutten,et al.  Reducing food waste by households and in retail in the EU; A prioritisation using economic, land use and food security impacts , 2013 .

[5]  Chris Smaje,et al.  Surplus retail food redistribution: An analysis of a third sector model , 2008 .

[6]  S. Robinson,et al.  Food Security: The Challenge of Feeding 9 Billion People , 2010, Science.

[7]  A Bernstad Saraiva Schott,et al.  Food waste minimization from a life-cycle perspective. , 2015, Journal of environmental management.

[8]  Felicitas Schneider,et al.  The evolution of food donation with respect to waste prevention. , 2013, Waste management.

[9]  David Helliwell Taylor,et al.  Demand management in agri-food supply chains : an analysis of the characteristics and problems and a framework for improvement , 2006 .

[10]  A. Perego,et al.  Opening the black box of food waste reduction , 2014 .

[11]  M. Eriksson,et al.  Best-before date – food storage temperatures recorded by Swedish students , 2015 .

[12]  Wayne Martindale,et al.  Waste: uncovering the global food scandal , 2010 .

[13]  Takeo Shiina,et al.  A review of life cycle assessment (LCA) on some food products. , 2009 .

[14]  M. Fehr,et al.  The basis of a policy for minimizing and recycling food waste , 2002 .

[15]  Elin Röös,et al.  Analysing the carbon footprint of food , 2013 .

[16]  Cecilia Stanghellini,et al.  Environmental impact assessment of dutch tomato crop production in a Venlo glasshouse , 2012 .

[17]  Mattias Eriksson,et al.  Retail Food Wastage a Case Study Approach to Quantities and Causes , 2012 .

[18]  Myriam Vander Stichele,et al.  Who Reaps the Fruit? Critical Issues in the Fresh Fruit & Vegetable Chain , 2006 .

[19]  Ki-in Choi,et al.  Evaluation of environmental burdens caused by changes of food waste management systems in Seoul, Korea. , 2007, The Science of the total environment.

[20]  S. Pfister,et al.  Life Cycle Inventory and Carbon and Water FoodPrint of Fruits and Vegetables: Application to a Swiss Retailer , 2012, Environmental Science and Technology.

[21]  Jo Dewulf,et al.  Environmental sustainability assessment of food waste valorization options , 2014 .

[22]  Fredrik Wikström,et al.  Environmental impact of packaging and food losses in a life cycle perspective: a comparative analysis of five food items , 2011 .

[23]  C. Nellemann,et al.  The environmental food crisis : the environment's role in averting future food crises , 2009 .

[24]  S Lebersorger,et al.  Food loss rates at the food retail, influencing factors and reasons as a basis for waste prevention measures. , 2014, Waste management.

[25]  T. Lyson,et al.  An analysis of a community food waste stream , 2009 .

[26]  Katia Lasaridi,et al.  Measuring waste prevention. , 2013, Waste management.

[27]  Mattias Eriksson,et al.  Best-before date mass experiment , 2012 .

[28]  Stefan Salhofer,et al.  Potentials for the prevention of municipal solid waste. , 2008, Waste management.

[29]  J. Davis,et al.  Emissions of greenhouse gases from production of horticultural products : analysis of 17 products cultivated in Sweden , 2011 .

[30]  S. N. M. Menikpura,et al.  Integrated Solid Waste Management: an approach for enhancing climate co-benefits through resource recovery , 2013 .

[31]  Charlotte Scheutz,et al.  Substitution of peat, fertiliser and manure by compost in hobby gardening: user surveys and case studies. , 2010, Waste management.

[32]  R. Hodges,et al.  FORESIGHT PROJECT ON GLOBAL FOOD AND FARMING FUTURES Postharvest losses and waste in developed and less developed countries: opportunities to improve resource use* , 2010 .

[33]  Herman Nilsson,et al.  Integrating Sustainability in the Food Supply Chain : Two Measures to Reduce the Food Wastage in a Swedish Retail Store , 2013 .

[34]  J la Cour Jansen,et al.  A life cycle approach to the management of household food waste - A Swedish full-scale case study. , 2011, Waste management.

[35]  Jenny Gustavsson,et al.  Retail waste of horticultural products in Sweden , 2011 .

[36]  N. G. Wright,et al.  The food waste hierarchy as a framework for the management of food surplus and food waste , 2014 .

[37]  Aiello Giuseppe,et al.  Economic benefits from food recovery at the retail stage: an application to Italian food chains. , 2014, Waste management.

[38]  I. Strid,et al.  VALORIZATION OF MEAT WASTE FROM RETAIL STORES , 2013 .

[39]  Christian Andersson,et al.  Från jord till bord , 2013 .

[40]  Stefanie Hellweg,et al.  Quantifying food losses and the potential for reduction in Switzerland. , 2013, Waste management.

[41]  Ole Jørgen Hanssen,et al.  Initiatives on prevention of food waste in the retail and wholesale trades , 2011 .

[42]  Karin Östergren,et al.  FUSIONS Definitional Framework for Food Waste , 2014 .

[43]  Fiona Srogi,et al.  Love Food Hate Waste , 2008 .

[44]  David Molden,et al.  Saving Water : From Field to Fork Curbing Losses and Wastage in the Food Chain , 2008 .

[45]  Chris Hope,et al.  Environmental information for all : The need of a monthly index , 1990 .

[46]  Felicitas Schneider,et al.  Review of food waste prevention on an international level , 2013 .

[47]  Joan Rieradevall,et al.  COMPARING THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF GREENHOUSE VERSUS OPEN-FIELD TOMATO PRODUCTION IN THE MEDITERRANEAN REGION , 2008 .

[48]  Jean C. Buzby,et al.  Supermarket Loss Estimates for Fresh Fruit, Vegetables, Meat, Poultry, and Seafood and Their Use in the ERS Loss-Adjusted Food Availability Data , 2009 .

[49]  J. Gustavsson.  Global food losses and food waste , 2011 .

[50]  Thomas H Christensen,et al.  Environmental evaluation of municipal waste prevention. , 2011, Waste management.

[51]  C. Cederberg.  Greenhouse gas emissions from Swedish consumption of meat, milk and eggs 1990 and 2005 , 2009 .

[52]  Kirsi Silvennoinen,et al.  Food waste in the Finnish food chain , 2014 .

[53]  Jean C. Buzby,et al.  Total and per capita value of food loss in the United States , 2012 .

[54]  E. Röös.  Analysing the Carbon Footprint of Food Insights for Consumer Communication , 2013 .

[55]  Helmut Rechberger,et al.  Practical handbook of material flow analysis , 2003 .

[56]  B. Frostell,et al.  Protein efficiency per unit energy and per unit greenhouse gas emissions: Potential contribution of diet choices to climate change mitigation , 2011 .

[57]  Jean C. Buzby,et al.  The Value of Retail‐ and Consumer‐Level Fruit and Vegetable Losses in the United States , 2011 .

[58]  T. Garnett.  Where are the best opportunities for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the food system (including the food chain) , 2011 .

[59]  J. Prins.  Directive 2003/98/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council , 2006 .

[60]  Mattias Eriksson,et al.  Losses in the supply chain of Swedish lettuce - wasted amounts and their carbon footprint at primary production, whole sale and retail. , 2014 .