Making food rescue your business: Case studies in Germany

Regina Sedlmeier, Meike Rombach, Vera Bitsch

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

20 Scopus citations

Abstract

Initiatives of the European Union in the context of food waste running governmental and nonprofit campaigns strive to reach waste reduction goals. The study investigated entrepreneurial business models in the arena of food waste in Germany with a multiple case study research approach. Business entrepreneurs seek to reduce waste through its monetarization. After the initial identification of close to all current entrepreneurial businesses, ten entrepreneurs in retail, processing, and food service were interviewed to determine barriers and challenges to the models' success and analyze their motivation to start these businesses. The most important barriers constituted logistical problems regarding supply as well as marketing; and the need for close collaboration with suppliers constituted another important challenge. Their motivations combine sustainability-oriented goals with a profit goal. To scale up, an increase in collaboration and data exchange is needed across the supply chain.

Original languageEnglish
Article number5101
JournalSustainability (Switzerland)
Volume11
Issue number18
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Sep 2019

Keywords

  • Food waste reduction
  • Research case study
  • Saving food
  • Social business
  • Sustainable entrepreneurship

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Making food rescue your business: Case studies in Germany'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this