The Paradox of Food Waste and Food Insecurity : Exploring Donation and Redistribution of Surplus Food through a Multi-Level Perspective

Abstract: Around one million tonne of food is annually wasted in Sweden, of which 100,000 tonne of surplus foodis wasted in the retail sector. Even if redistribution of surplus food is the second most preferable optionto reduce food waste according to the food waste hierarchy, only 5% of surplus food in retail is donated.At the same time, food insecurity is a global as well as a Swedish concern. In 2017, 6% of the Swedishpopulation had a low-income standard, and food banks are currently reporting an increasing demand forfood support. The goal of the study was to investigate surplus food donations from grocery stores tofood banks as an approach to address the paradox of food waste and food insecurity. It was done byidentifying challenges and potential lock-in factors, and by analysing practices and success factors toidentify potential best-practices. The study was a qualitative case study and used the sustainabilitytransition framework ‘multi-level perspective’ (MLP) for analysis. The study took part in a collaborationproject to produce a handbook for surplus food donations in retail, which aims to guide actors in retailhow to reduce avoidable food waste by increasing donations. The results showed that there are some basic conditions that are needed for surplus food donations totake place in a safe way. These can be fulfilled in diverse ways, which have been analysed together withsuccess factors and learnings from the literature to give examples of ‘good enough’ practices and bestpractises. This division of ‘good enough and ‘best’ was made to address that small, volunteer-led foodbanks and larger, more experienced ones have quite different opportunities and challenges. Grocerystores also seem to face various practical, economic, and managerial challenges to donating their surplus.The analysis of the challenges showed some potential lock-in factors that contribute to obstructingsurplus food donations to be an integrated part of the food regime. These lock-in factors are mainlyrelated to the devaluation of ecological and social costs of food waste and the low political priority,thereby sustaining a lack of funding, and a ‘waste as a resource’-thinking. Even if there are severalpotential lock-ins that might need to be ‘unlocked’ for surplus food donations to be a part of a radicaltransition to a more sustainable food system, there are still several of the ‘good enough’- and bestpractices that can be implemented to incrementally improve the resource efficiency of the current foodsystem. Surplus food donations may, however, be a key component in the transition towards asustainable food system.