Fight against food waste - interaction between values, choices and habits

In Denmark, there is wide agreement that food waste should be diminished, cf. UN Sustainable Development Goal no. 12 concerning responsible consumption and production. Nevertheless, according to the Danish Ministry of Environment, Denmark annually generates 814,000 tons of food waste. A considerable amount of this waste is generated late in the value chain, in the retail sector and among consumers – and in the interplay between them. This project sets out to explore which barriers and opportunities can be identified when it comes to fighting food waste in the interaction between consumers, the retail industry and food waste organisations.

The project is a collaboration between researchers from the Faculty of Humanities, the Faculty of Law and the Department of Food and Resource Economics at the University of Copenhagen and four key stakeholders in the fight against food waste: Forbrugerrådet Tænk, FødevareBanken, Stop Spild Lokalt and Salling Group. Through interdisciplinary research and close ties to practice, the project aims to contribute to the understanding of food waste as a complex societal problem and develop new initiatives in the fight against food waste.