Redefining Price Promotions to decrease Food Waste – Sell them what they need not what they want
(A2020-64340)

AUTHORS

Sybilla Merian, University of Zurich; Petra Tipaldi, University of Zurich, Department of Marketing ; Klaus Fuchs, ETH Zurich; Martin Natter, University of Zurich, Deparment of Business Administration, Chair of Marketing

KEYWORDS

food waste; loyalty cards; retailer marketing

ABSTRACT

About a third of all food produced for human consumption is either lost or wasted. Food waste gains public recognition, especially its negative environmental and socio-economic effects, putting also pressure on sellers. So far measuring food waste has been tedious or impractical. We propose a novel approach to predict food waste based on the consumer’s grocery basket. Using a unique data set of loyalty-card shopping data of two retailers that cover 70% of the national market share, we identify important basket and shopping characteristics that predict food waste behavior. Our analysis enables consumers to track and adjust their food waste behavior at its source: grocery shopping. For retailers, our model opens the opportunity to help the consumer identify and potentially reduce food waste by offering meaningful promotions and thereby responding to the pressure to take responsibility for their part in the supply chain of food.

REFERENCES

This research was supported by the University Research Priority Program “Social Networks” at the University of Zurich.