Towards integrating production and consumption to reduce consumer food waste in developed countries

Literature analysing reasons for Consumer Food Waste (CFW) revealed that it cannot be reduced to individual consumer behaviour alone. In fact, CFW should not be conceptualised as the problem but as a symptom of a food system that oversupplies and encourages consumerism. This research focuses on preventing CFW generated in the United Kingdom (UK), as a representative of a developed country, by improving the traditional food provisioning system to better integrate production and consumption. To achieve this, five stages are identified to design a sustainable product service system (PSS) capable of supporting consumers to better manage their food operations. These are: (1) strategic analysis of current food provisioning system, (2) exploring system level innovations leading to significant minimisation of CFW, (3) refinement and selection of PSS, (4) designing the most promising PSS concept from an environmental, economic and social perspective, and (5) evaluating designed PSS against current food provisioning system. This paper considers the first of these stages, reviews reasons for and existing solutions to CFW, and provides a strategic analysis of the current food provisioning system to identify characteristics that could be exploited within a new PSS to reduce CFW. Initial investigations reveal applicability of PSS concept to the food provisioning system and potential for considerable reduction of CFW if core causes are adequately addressed.