Getting to Grips With Food Waste A Case Study of Food Waste Mitigation and Management at a Swedish Restaurant

Abstract

The fact that a large amount of the food produced in the world is wasted is a direct expression of an inefficiency in the way we use our resources. It causes sufferings on a humanitarian level and profitability losses on a financial level. This work will focus on food waste in the hospitality industry and aims to contribute to improved food waste mitigation and management and to contribute to the knowledge generation in the growing academic field of food waste mitigation. This is reflected in the overarching research question of this paper: Which possible adjustments to Filimonau’s & De Coteau’s (2018) managerial framework for food waste mitigation in the hospitality industry can be derived from the application of the model to a case study in the Swedish context? The work is based on a case study of a Swedish lunch restaurant with food waste mitigation on top of the agenda and an experimental approach to the challenge. We have gathered qualitative data from the restaurant regarding different actions for improved food waste mitigation, as well as quantitative financial data from the case restaurant, another related restaurant and general data from a Swedish hospitality industry organization, with the intention to see if food waste mitigation efforts influence the financial results. The analysis of the financial data shows no clear evidence of correlation between food waste mitigation and improved gross margin. After applying the managerial framework for food waste mitigation to the data of the case study, we derive suggestions for possible adjustments to the theoretical framework and propose areas of future research.