4. What Drives Food Waste?

No one wakes up in the morning with the intention of throwing away food. In fact, most people see it as morally wrong to discard food. Despite this, at least one-third of all food produced is thrown away. When a food product ends up in the rubbish bin, or at best in a biogas plant, there is often a long chain of causes behind it. In order to reduce FLW, it is important to understand the complex dynamics that cause food to be discarded and the driving forces that either enhance or hinder efforts aimed at combatting this waste. If one does not understand the complexity, the effect of the work will be limited. For example, if a measure is not economically profitable, it will likely be difficult to achieve behavioural changes through psychological interventions.

In this chapter, we account for the most common reasons why food is thrown away at a general level and present an overview of the various stages in the value chain in more detail in Chapter 7, where various measures at the actor level are also discussed.

4.1 Economic causes

The claim that food is too cheap can be perceived as provocative, as it appears to lack consideration for people who have difficulty making ends meet. Nevertheless, in studying people’s and organisational behaviour, it is difficult to say otherwise. The economic cost of throwing away food is rarely sufficiently burdensome to motivate people or organisations to change. It should be noted, however, that many people cannot afford good food, but for most food expenditure is about one-tenth of their income.

The World Economic Forum. 2016. Which countries spend the most on food? This map will show you. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/12/this-map-shows-how-much-each-country-spends-on-food/ (2024-02-16).

If twenty percent of this is thrown away, the cost becomes one to two percent of income, a cost that is not sufficiently impactful to motivate most people when other things in life are perceived as more urgent. In the business world, it is often not perceived as economically profitable to invest in new technology and more staff working hours to reduce FLW. For the farmer, the least costly alternative may be to plough the surplus vegetables back into the fields. For retailers, campaigns can be profitable even if they drive up waste. Consumers can sometimes benefit from buying in bulk – even if some of it spoils and must be thrown away – due to lower comparative prices.

When planning measures against FLW, it is important to analyse the economic conditions, including any personnel costs for implementing changes. While some individuals lead the way for moral reasons, for measures to have broad impact, they must not constitute an economic burden for the individual actor.

4.2 Lack of knowledge

There are plenty of examples of economically profitable measures that are not carried out for a range of reasons. Consumers generally have low knowledge about what date labelling means and how food could be stored as appropriately as possible to extend its shelf life.

European Commission. 2018. Market study on date marking and other information provided on food labels and food waste prevention. Final Report. https://food.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2018-07/fw_lib_srp_date-marking.pdf (2024-06-13).

In retail, it can be profitable to invest in more staff time to reduce fruit and vegetable waste, but this analysis is rarely done.

L. Mattsson and H. Williams. 2022. Avoidance of Supermarket Food Waste—Employees’ Perspective on Causes and Measures to Reduce Fruit and Vegetables Waste. Sustainability, Vol. 14: 10031. https://doi.org/10.3390/su141610031

Parallels can be drawn to work on energy efficiency, where research has identified numerous economically profitable measures in both industry and households that are not implemented for various reasons.

Often, there is a lack of knowledge about what is possible, and the incentives to gather information or explore possibilities oneself are too low. The focus may be on other factors, such as producing and selling as much as possible and having satisfied customers. Perceived stress, whether among staff or consumers, reduces the drive and energy to acquire knowledge, plan, act, and follow up.

In several areas along the food chain, there are staff on low-income jobs experiencing stressful working conditions. Often, they are not sufficiently involved in the work of reducing FLW, which can also be explained by high staff turnover. If staff have inadequate knowledge and are sometimes lacking in motivation, it can be difficult to maintain routines and development work. For organisations, it is crucial for management to show that a reduction in FLW is important and that this bears out in action.

4.3 Lack of cooperation between stages

The cause of waste often originates in a location or setting other than where it actually occurs. For example, consumer demand for perfect vegetables is one cause of waste in primary production; fish is sometimes thrown away in shops because of inadequate cooling during the wholesale stage; FLW in elderly care or schools can be due to the kitchen cooking too much food, which can be due to them not receiving sufficient need-related information. The school kitchen may, for example, be unaware that there is unusually high sick leave, thus leading to excess cooking. It can also be difficult to implement measures where the actor who suffers economically from FLW does not have the authority to influence the actor who could take measures.

Lack of cooperation between actors in the value chain can have many causes. Commonly, actors do not want to share data with other actors in the chain. This complicates planning in the network, wherein actors may suddenly find themselves with an amount of perishables that far exceeds demand. Furthermore, there is often a lack of standardised systems for data sharing, even when there is a will to share.

In several cases, there are so-called take-back agreements, where an actor can return goods at no cost to previous stages. In some cases, a producer rents shelves in a shop, chooses the assortment offered, and clears out products that do not sell from the shelves. This is a common practice in the bread market in Sweden. Leftover bread can be turned into animal feed or raw material for other food production. However, it would be better if the shops could sell the bread on site at a reduced price.

There are also agreements between parties that make it difficult to take measures against FLW, such as prohibiting an actor from reselling food to parties other than what was agreed.

Report from matsvinnsutvalget. 2023. Anbefalningar till helhetlige tiltak og vikemidler. https://www.regjeringen.no/contentassets/5a5cadf8907a4f4c94740d23d7c4c6e4/rapport-fra-matsvinnutvalget-anbefalinger-til-helhetlige-tiltak-og-virkemidler-31.12.23.pdf (2024-06-14).In some cases, the types of agreements above arise due to power imbalances between actors. A strong actor can force through agreements because others feel that they have no option to say no.

4.4 The view on packaging

The purpose of packaging is primarily to protect food during its journey from producer to consumer. Within the value chain, there is awareness of the importance of packaging as well as constant work towards developing better packaging. Packaging in today’s context generally protects food much better than in the past while reducing the environmental impact, although exceptions do exist.

The dream of the packaging-free shop and packaging legislation, however, bears witness to the fact that for consumers, environmental organisations and legislative assemblies, it is the environmental impact of the packaging that is usually in focus. Its protective functions are often forgotten or taken for granted. In concrete terms, this means that the consumer does not consider which packages minimise FLW at home. It also means that laws are introduced that increase FLW, such as bans on plastic-wrapped vegetables.

From an environmental point of view, the environmental impact of packaging should be balanced against the environmental impact of the FLW that it seeks to prevent, and it is important to acknowledge that packaging protects food from breaking down and going bad. Other packaging functions are not as noticeable but also have a significant impact on how much is thrown away in households. The two most important are quantity and communication relating to date labelling. The packaging should contain the right amount so that the contents can be consumed before the food goes bad or the “expiry” date. When the package is opened, much of its protection disappears, causing it to age faster. If the consumer buys too large a quantity, either because there are no packages with smaller quantities or because comparative prices entice larger package sizes, the risk of waste increases. In a pioneering study, the share of food waste in households due to packaging was calculated to be around 50%.

H. Williams, J. Trischler, F. Wikström, and Z. Rowe. 2020. Avoiding Food Becoming Waste in Households – The role of packaging in consumers´ practices across different food categories. Journal of Cleaner Production, Vol. 265.

There is major potential to reduce FLW if the role of packaging is made clearer.

4.5 Regulations as barriers

There are numerous laws and regulations in agriculture, food safety, and waste management, most of which have usually been introduced without analysing the consequences for FLW. Some examples are as follows:

Examples from H. Bos-Brouwers, M. Kok MSc, J. Snels, and A. van der Sluis. 2020. Changing the rules of the game. Impact and feasibility of policy and regulatory measures on the prevention. https://edepot.wur.nl/529888. This report analyses barriers from the perspective of the Netherlands.

The design of agricultural support means that there may be a surplus of certain products in the market and that there is a high risk that some of this surplus will be thrown away.
EU standards regarding the appearance of fruit and vegetables mean that a great deal of harvest does not reach consumers.
EU food safety regulations mean that producers, shops, etc. often throw away a batch of products rather than donate it in order to avoid being held responsible if any product should cause illness.
EU import controls can sometimes cause delays lasting several days, thereby shortening the shelf life of perishables in the market.
In the fishing industry, by-catches are thrown away due to the design of regulations. Fish that do not meet requirements, for example, regarding size are released, but it is uncertain how large a proportion survive.
To achieve good food safety, the handling of food is carefully regulated. While safety should never be compromised, it appears that because of regulations, and the interpretation of them, unnecessarily large margins are affected, leading to wastage of food that is safe to eat.
Rules and tax rates aimed at stimulating bioenergy production from FLW can sometimes counteract food being used as animal feed.
In some countries, VAT is charged on donated food, and sometimes, there is uncertainty around what applies. This can lead to food being thrown away instead of being donated. Uncertainty around responsibility for food safety relating to donated food also leads to food being thrown away unnecessarily.

To our knowledge, no studies have quantified how much FLW arises due to the design of regulations, even though it is likely to account for significant amounts.