The Packaging's Role in Prevention of Product Waste - The supply Chain of Bread

Abstract: Purpose - Food lost or wasted constitutes a substantial environmental, economic and social problem; today roughly one-third of edible parts of food that is produced for human consumption globally gets lost or wasted. Thus, a reduction of waste would contribute to a sustainable use of resources. It has been highlighted that packaging development has the potential to play an important role in this process. Further, bread appears to be an interesting product to investigate since it gets lost or wasted in a large quantity in developed countries and since it is a food product that is sold both packed and unpacked. This thesis examines the formation of waste along the supply chain of bread and tries to sort out aspects that can be connected to the packaging of the product. Further it investigates if there are possibilities to optimize bread-packaging systems in order to decrease the amount of wasted bread. Design/Methodology - To examine the connection between bread waste and the packaging an inductive method was used, trying to draw general and theoretical conclusions based on empirical data. To begin with, a literature review was conducted. The theory was then further used to perform interviews with three different supply chain actors: producers, retailers and consumers. Packaging experts at industrial bakeries and managers at retail stores were addressed with semi-structured interviews face-to-face while consumers were targeted with structured interviews in the form of oral questionnaires. Findings - This thesis concludes that there are aspects in relation to the packaging with the possibility to affect the amount of wasted bread. Primarily the connection to packaging size and date labeling system is discussed. In addition to this, results suggest additional aspects - without relation to the packaging - that have extensive impact on the formation of bread waste. Suggested measures for improvement concern mainly the behavior of consumers and waste formation in households and retail stores. Research Limitations - Interviews were performed with three producers and three retailers in the southern part of Sweden. A total of 50 consumers were targeted with questionnaires in five different retail stores. A larger number of participants, in both interviews and questionnaires, might help strengthening the significance of results. Future - Results from this thesis can be used to optimize the design of bread packaging systems, in an attempt to reduce the amount of wasted bread. A consumer survey of the interpretation and importance of different date labels and an investigation of main reasons for different bread producers to have varying return rates seem like important topics for future improvements.