IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jresou/v9y2020i3p27-d330372.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sustainability Assessment of Food Redistribution Initiatives in Sweden

Author

Listed:
  • Pauline Bergström

    (Department of Energy and Technology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Box 7032, 75007 Uppsala, Sweden)

  • Christopher Malefors

    (Department of Energy and Technology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Box 7032, 75007 Uppsala, Sweden)

  • Ingrid Strid

    (Department of Energy and Technology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Box 7032, 75007 Uppsala, Sweden)

  • Ole Jørgen Hanssen

    (Ostfold Research, Stadion 4, NO-1671 Kråkerøy, Norway)

  • Mattias Eriksson

    (Department of Energy and Technology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Box 7032, 75007 Uppsala, Sweden)

Abstract

Food banks that redistribute surplus food from retailers and the food industry to people in need are not a new concept globally, but their connection to food waste prevention is new. As a result, new types of food redistribution units are emerging and diversifying to find new target groups and distribution methods. The aim of this study was to identify and study surplus food redistribution units in Sweden, and then to assess the impact on several sustainability indicators for selected redistribution units, in order to increase knowledge on the types of values these redistribution concepts generate. The methods used for analyzing the scenarios were Environmental Life Cycle Assessment, Life Cycle Costing and Social Life Cycle Assessment. The results showed that providing food bags to socially exposed people generated the largest reduction of greenhouse gas emissions per kg of redistributed food (−1.2 kg CO 2 eq./FU). Reprocessing surplus food to a high-quality end-product was attributed a high social value, due to job creation effects in the high number of working hours required per kg of redistributed food. With regard to economic impacts, all but two scenarios studied had monthly financial losses, and therefore needed other sources of financial support.

Suggested Citation

  • Pauline Bergström & Christopher Malefors & Ingrid Strid & Ole Jørgen Hanssen & Mattias Eriksson, 2020. "Sustainability Assessment of Food Redistribution Initiatives in Sweden," Resources, MDPI, vol. 9(3), pages 1-27, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jresou:v:9:y:2020:i:3:p:27-:d:330372
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/9/3/27/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/9/3/27/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jane L. Midgley, 2014. "The logics of surplus food redistribution," Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 57(12), pages 1872-1892, December.
    2. González, Alejandro D. & Frostell, Björn & Carlsson-Kanyama, Annika, 2011. "Protein efficiency per unit energy and per unit greenhouse gas emissions: Potential contribution of diet choices to climate change mitigation," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 562-570, October.
    3. Eriksson, Mattias & Strid, Ingrid & Hansson, Per-Anders, 2016. "Food waste reduction in supermarkets – Net costs and benefits of reduced storage temperature," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 73-81.
    4. Henrik Saxe & Thomas Larsen & Lisbeth Mogensen, 2013. "The global warming potential of two healthy Nordic diets compared with the average Danish diet," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 116(2), pages 249-262, January.
    5. Eriksson, Mattias & Strid, Ingrid & Hansson, Per-Anders, 2014. "Waste of organic and conventional meat and dairy products—A case study from Swedish retail," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 44-52.
    6. Eriksson, Mattias & Ghosh, Ranjan & Mattsson, Lisa & Ismatov, Alisher, 2017. "Take-back agreements in the perspective of food waste generation at the supplier-retailer interface," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 83-93.
    7. Karlsson, Johan O. & Röös, Elin, 2019. "Resource-efficient use of land and animals—Environmental impacts of food systems based on organic cropping and avoided food-feed competition," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 63-72.
    8. Eriksson, Mattias & Strid, Ingrid & Hansson, Per-Anders, 2012. "Food losses in six Swedish retail stores: Wastage of fruit and vegetables in relation to quantities delivered," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 14-20.
    9. Ola Eriksson, 2017. "Energy and Waste Management," Energies, MDPI, vol. 10(7), pages 1-7, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nathalia Granja & Pedro Domingues & Mónica Cabecinhas & Dominik Zimon & Paulo Sampaio, 2021. "ISO 22000 Certification: Diffusion in Europe," Resources, MDPI, vol. 10(10), pages 1-16, September.
    2. Friederike Lehn & Thomas Schmidt, 2022. "Sustainability Assessment of Food-Waste-Reduction Measures by Converting Surplus Food into Processed Food Products for Human Consumption," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(1), pages 1-14, December.
    3. Dmitrii Zakharov & Alexey Fadyushin & Denis Chainikov, 2020. "Changes in the Environmental Sustainability of the Urban Transport System when Introducing Paid Parking for Private Vehicles," Resources, MDPI, vol. 9(9), pages 1-18, August.
    4. Bartłomiej Gładysz & Aleksander Buczacki & Cecilia Haskins, 2020. "Lean Management Approach to Reduce Waste in HoReCa Food Services," Resources, MDPI, vol. 9(12), pages 1-20, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cicatiello, Clara & Franco, Silvio & Pancino, Barbara & Blasi, Emanuele & Falasconi, Luca, 2017. "The dark side of retail food waste: Evidences from in-store data," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 273-281.
    2. Eriksson, Mattias & Ghosh, Ranjan & Mattsson, Lisa & Ismatov, Alisher, 2017. "Take-back agreements in the perspective of food waste generation at the supplier-retailer interface," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 83-93.
    3. Morena Bruno & Marianne Thomsen & Federico Maria Pulselli & Nicoletta Patrizi & Michele Marini & Dario Caro, 2019. "The carbon footprint of Danish diets," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 156(4), pages 489-507, October.
    4. Peter Scarborough & Paul Appleby & Anja Mizdrak & Adam Briggs & Ruth Travis & Kathryn Bradbury & Timothy Key, 2014. "Dietary greenhouse gas emissions of meat-eaters, fish-eaters, vegetarians and vegans in the UK," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 125(2), pages 179-192, July.
    5. EiÄ aitÄ—, Ovidija & Baležentis, Tomas & RibaÅ¡auskienÄ—, Erika & MorkÅ«nas, Mangirdas & MelnikienÄ—, Rasa & Å treimikienÄ—, Dalia, 2022. "Food waste in the retail sector: A survey-based evidence from Central and Eastern Europe," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    6. Vivian G. M. Quam & Joacim Rocklöv & Mikkel B. M. Quam & Rebekah A. I. Lucas, 2017. "Assessing Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Health Co-Benefits: A Structured Review of Lifestyle-Related Climate Change Mitigation Strategies," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(5), pages 1-19, April.
    7. João Pinto & Rui Boavida-Dias & Henrique A. Matos & João Azevedo, 2022. "Analysis of the Food Loss and Waste Valorisation of Animal By-Products from the Retail Sector," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(5), pages 1-27, February.
    8. Brunner, Florentine & Kurz, Verena & Bryngelsson, David & Hedenus, Fredrik, 2018. "Carbon Label at a University Restaurant – Label Implementation and Evaluation," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 658-667.
    9. Ioannis Mallidis & Nikolaos Sariannidis & Dimitrios Vlachos & Volha Yakavenka & Georgia Aifadopoulou & Konstantinos Zopounidis, 2022. "Optimal inventory control policies for avoiding food waste," Operational Research, Springer, vol. 22(1), pages 685-701, March.
    10. Scholz, Katharina & Eriksson, Mattias & Strid, Ingrid, 2015. "Carbon footprint of supermarket food waste," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 56-65.
    11. Zeke Marshall & Paul E. Brockway, 2020. "A Net Energy Analysis of the Global Agriculture, Aquaculture, Fishing and Forestry System," Biophysical Economics and Resource Quality, Springer, vol. 5(2), pages 1-27, June.
    12. Bianca Cezara Archip & Ioan Banatean-Dunea & Dacinia Crina Petrescu & Ruxandra Malina Petrescu-Mag, 2023. "Determinants of Food Waste in Cluj-Napoca (Romania): A Community-Based System Dynamics Approach," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(3), pages 1-22, January.
    13. Kasper Górny & Natalia Idaszewska & Zuzanna Sydow & Krzysztof Bieńczak, 2021. "Modelling the Carbon Footprint of Various Fruit and Vegetable Products Based on a Company’s Internal Transport Data," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(14), pages 1-15, July.
    14. Linnea Laestadius & Roni Neff & Colleen Barry & Shannon Frattaroli, 2013. "Meat consumption and climate change: the role of non-governmental organizations," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 120(1), pages 25-38, September.
    15. Bauer, Jan M. & Aarestrup, Simon C. & Hansen, Pelle G. & Reisch, Lucia A., 2022. "Nudging more sustainable grocery purchases: Behavioural innovations in a supermarket setting," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    16. Joshua D. Lohnes, 2021. "Regulating surplus: charity and the legal geographies of food waste enclosure," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 38(2), pages 351-363, June.
    17. White, Robin R. & Brady, Michael, 2014. "Can consumers’ willingness to pay incentivize adoption of environmental impact reducing technologies in meat animal production?," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(P1), pages 41-49.
    18. Vázquez-Rowe, Ian & Villanueva-Rey, Pedro & Moreira, Mª Teresa & Feijoo, Gumersindo, 2013. "The role of consumer purchase and post-purchase decision-making in sustainable seafood consumption. A Spanish case study using carbon footprinting," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 94-102.
    19. García-Leal, Javiera & Espinoza Pérez, Andrea Teresa & Vásquez, Óscar C., 2023. "Towards the sustainable massive food services: An optimization approach," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 87(PA).
    20. Oriana Gava & Fabio Bartolini & Francesca Venturi & Gianluca Brunori & Alberto Pardossi, 2020. "Improving Policy Evidence Base for Agricultural Sustainability and Food Security: A Content Analysis of Life Cycle Assessment Research," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-29, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jresou:v:9:y:2020:i:3:p:27-:d:330372. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.