Barriers and Incentives to Zero Packaging Food Retail: A Global Stocktake

Abstract: Single use, disposable food packaging comprises a significant portion of the global waste stream resulting from food consumption systems. In an attempt to devise a preventative approach to food retail waste management, niche zero packaging retailers have established shop across the world. Food provision through these retailers aims to generate negligible amounts of disposable packaging waste. Over the past decade there has been an increase in form of food retail, which is seen as a counter movement to traditional mainstream supermarkets. There has been little research on the state-of-the-art of unpackaged food retail. Thus, this study aims to provide a systematic overview of the barriers and incentives to this form of food retail. The research is guided by a dichotomous analytical framework that seeks to present barriers and incentives in the following four factor groups pertaining to food retail: Regulatory, Social, Market and Resource Factors. The research is based primarily on a literature analysis and semi-structured interviews with mainstream and zero packaging food retailers as well as packaging industry experts. Retailers and packaging industry experts from eight different countries contributed to the empirical findings of this study, thus a global perspective has been gained. The paper contributes to the existing body of research by providing an overview, in the form of a taxonomy of barriers and incentives as identified through both the literature and empirical data. A series of ‘lessons’ are drawn from this taxonomy, and conclusions posed. This paper is of relevance to zero packaging and mainstream food retailers as well as academics who wish to better understand the state-of-the-art of unpackaged food retail. Policymakers who wish to gain an overview on this approach to preventative food retail waste management may also find this study useful.