Could Assortment Rationalisation Help Reduce Food Waste in Grocery Stores?

Elvira Saez-Gonzalez and Juan Carlos Gazquez-Abad
Additional contact information
Elvira Saez-Gonzalez: University of Almeria, Almeria, Spain
Juan Carlos Gazquez-Abad: University of Almeria, Almeria, Spain

The AMFITEATRU ECONOMIC journal, 2024, vol. 26, issue Special 18, 1292

Abstract: Nowadays, sustainable development and waste management are the topics on which academia is focusing. The size of the retail assortment plays a crucial role in influencing the levels of food waste in grocery stores. Additionally, the analysis of retail food waste highlights that the planning of assortment sizes is essential for reducing waste, particularly in products with expiration or best-before dates, such as fresh fruit and vegetables, where a few products contribute significantly to overall waste. This work aims to explore assortment rationalisation as a way to prevent food waste from perishable products in retail grocery stores and, therefore, improve the sustainability generated by food retail chains in developed countries. Although many articles analyse the relationship between retail store operations and food waste prevention, to our knowledge, there is little research that explicitly focuses on assortment. From the review of the specialised literature, few studies have been detected on the effects of the grocery store assortment on food waste. This paper attempts to fill part of this research gap, by focusing on establishing a link between assortment rationalisation and food waste in grocery retail stores through a review of the scientific literature on proactive food waste prevention strategies, presenting an opportunity for future research in this emerging research area, and providing practical advice to retail chains concerned about sustainability. In conclusion, this study serves as an initial approach to this topic and is a useful starting point for future research in this area. Our primary contribution lies in highlighting a certain scarcity of studies on the retailer's assortment as a proactive food waste prevention strategy.

Keywords: assortment rationalisation; assortment reduction; assortment size; retail food waste; retail food waste prevention strategies; grocery stores; sustainability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: M14 M21 M31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.amfiteatrueconomic.ro/temp/Article_3372.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aes:amfeco:v:26:y:2024:i:special18:p:1292

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The AMFITEATRU ECONOMIC journal from Academy of Economic Studies - Bucharest, Romania Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Valentin Dumitru ().