Circulating food products : a solution to the problem of food waste?

Abstract: The problems related to food waste is gaining increased international attention, raising issues of environmental, economic and social character related to global food security and sustainable development. The European Union has recently increased its focus on food waste by adopting the Circular Economy Package where the reduction of food waste is identified as a key area. Similarly, the Swedish Government aims to reduce food waste in the entire food supply chain, stating that collaboration between different actors is necessary to succeed. Previous research on circular economy has primarily enabled macro level analysis, by focusing on policies rather than micro level initiatives that promote circular economy. Further, research on food waste has focused on reasons for the occurrence of waste at different stages in the food supply chain. However, less research has been conducted on research on food waste in the interface between suppliers and retailers. Therefore, the phenomenon of interest in this thesis is market initiatives developed by intermediary actors with the purpose of reducing food waste. This phenomenon is studied with a particular focus on the organisation as the unit of analysis. The intermediary organisations in this study are Matsmart, Food2change and Matcentralen, all operating in the Swedish food supply chain. Thus, the aim of the thesis is to identify and explicate market initiatives promoting a circular economy, developed by intermediary actors addressing issues of food waste in the interface between suppliers and retailers. This thesis follows a qualitative research design with an inductive approach to data and literature collection. It consists of a multiple case study on Matsmart, Food2change and Matcentralen. The primary source of data is semi-structured interviews with two representatives from each case, whereas the secondary sources of data is collected from the intermediary actors’ websites. The analysis of the empirical data is carried out by using the conceptual framework of social entrepreneurs, which also involves the selected theories on circular economy, the triple bottom line, creating shared value, social entrepreneurs and descriptive stakeholder perspective. The conceptual framework identifies three characteristics of social entrepreneurship; motivation originating from social and economic values, stakeholder value creation and business models as catalysts for societal change. This thesis identifies Matsmart, Food2change and Matcentralen as social entrepreneurs, where all three cases share a common motive of reducing food waste in the Swedish food supply chain. Matsmart is further motivated to gain a profit from its business, while Food2change and Matcentralen are motivated to improve the socioeconomic situation for their members. Similarly, all three cases create values of environmental character for their suppliers in terms of reduced food waste. In addition, Matsmart creates economic values for their suppliers. Food2change and Matcentralen focus on creating social and economic values for their members by involving them in the operations and by reducing their cost of food. Moreover, Matsmart, Food2change and Matcentralen have created business models that show characteristics and principles of circular economy. These results indicate that circular economy has the potential to operate on a micro level when initiated by social entrepreneurs, addressing issues of food waste.