Marketing Frugality to Cut Back on Food Waste

"I was on a business trip to Scotland and I read about Selina in a newspaper. Around that time, we learned that every Dane was throwing out 63 kilos of food per year and I was sitting in this airport thinking, she's right."
"It exploded in the media because it was the first time a retailer said, 'It's O.K. if we sell less'."
Anders Jensen, buying director, REMA 1000, Denmark supermarket chain

"When we emigrated [from the Soviet Union], I had never seen so much food. I was shocked."
"Then I was shocked again when I saw how much food people wasted."
"[Now], surplus food has become very popular."
Selina Juul, Russian immigrant, professional designer

"Food waste might be a uniquely American challenge because many people in this country equate quantity with a bargain."
"Look at the number of restaurants that advertise their supersized portions."
Meredith Niles, professor, food systems program, University of Vermont

"There's been a lot of focus on energy [relating to the environment and climate change]."
"But climate change is as much a land issue and a food issue as anything else."
Paul Berens, professor of energy and environmental change, University of Leiden, Netherlands

"Happy hour" at the S-market in Helsinki, Finland where food expiring in a few hours is steeply discounted. Photograph, Juho Kuva, for The New York Times

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, an estimated one-third of food produced globally and packaged for human consumption is either lost or wasted, equalling 1.3 billion tons annually, with a value of close to $680 billion. This, in the face of another fact; that ten percent of people in the world are undernourished. In addition to which scientists point out that the excess food that goes to waste is a contributor to climate change.

Food lost during harvest and production or wasted by consumers contributes between 8 to ten percent of greenhouse gas emissions according to a recent report. Methane, a gas approximately 25 times more harmful to the environment than carbon dioxide, is emitted by landfills of rotting food. In most retail cultures, selling as much food and moving it along as expeditiously as possible is integral to profit and retailing success.

Which makes the reduction of waste a challenge in persuading merchants that they can promote and also profit from "food rescue" protocols. "Consumers are paying for the food, and who wants to reduce that?" is the rhetorical invitation to a response by Toine Timmermans, director of the  United Against Food Waste Foundation in the Netherlands. "Who profits from reducing food waste?"

REMA 1000

That question linked to the hoped-for success of selling a new idea of reducing food waste is being answered by a growing number of supermarkets, restaurants and start-ups, mostly based in Europe. Apps appear to hold out much promise in efforts toward reducing food waste. One of the most popular apps is Too Good to Go, based in Copenhagen, with 13 million users and contracts with 25,000 restaurants and bakeries in 11 countries.

The idea behind their success is convincing consumers it is to their advantage to pay about one-third of the sticker price for food items; most of it going to the retailer, and a small percentage to the app. Food rescue in Denmark has become a kind of cultural movement. Selina Juul has been recognized as its founding principal when at age 28 in 2008 she launched a Facebook group called Stop Wasting Food.

Before a week was up she was interviewed on radio and following that Anders Jensen, buying director of REMA 1000 the largest Danish supermarket chain, contacted her. They met in Copenhagen and the result was that REMA 1000 eliminated in-store bulk discounts to entice people to buy food in impractical quantities leading to waste. From 2008 forward there were no such 'bargains' as three hams for the price of two.

This file photo taken on February 22, 2016 shows people shopping in the Wefood supermarket that sells food past its sell-by date at Amager in Copenhagen, Denmark. (© Soren Bidstrup / SCANPIX DENMARK / AFP)