Effectiveness of Waste Audit in Inventory and Waste Management for the Food Companies: A Case Study on Subway

This research proposal aims to explore and evaluate the efficiency of waste audit system in implementing an efficient inventory and waste management system in food companies which is beneficial for not only reducing operational cost for the companies but also for reducing food waste. To conduct this study, the researcher chose Subway, the world famous global chain of Submarine sandwiches (Subs) and salads, operating in New Zealand.

Running head: RESEARCH PROPOSAL
Effectiveness of Waste Audit in Inventory and Waste Management for the Food
Companies: A Case Study on Subway
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

1RESEARCH PROPOSAL
Topic: Effectiveness of Waste Audit in Inventory and Waste Management for the Food
Companies: A Case Study on Subway
1. Organizational Context
In the food and beverage industry, the role of inventory and waste management is highly
important. The stock of inventories and products is mostly perishable in the food companies and
thus, the processes of inventories and waste management are very different in this industry than
other industries handling large amount of inventories. The level of waste is also high in this
industry as the goods are perishable, which gives rise to the necessity of waste audit for the food
companies. Waste audit is a tool for regulating the usage of resources and inventories of the food
companies and this is important for keeping a check on the food wastage (Papargyropoulou et
al., 2016). In a time when a large percentage of the world’s population is suffering from food
insecurity, lack of adequate nutrition and hunger, wastage of food by the food companies as well
as by the customers appears to be a luxury which every individual cannot afford (Gundersen &
Ziliak, 2015). Thus, in this awareness, the food companies are now adopting various measures
for regulating and controlling their food waste and resource waste as a part of the inventory and
waste management programmes, among which waste audit is one tool. This research proposal
aims to explore and evaluate the efficiency of waste audit system in implementing an efficient
inventory and waste management system in food companies which is beneficial for not only
reducing operational cost for the companies but also for reducing food waste. To conduct this
study, the researcher chose Subway, the world famous global chain of Submarine sandwiches
(Subs) and salads, operating in New Zealand. Similar to many other countries, New Zealand is
also facing the issue of food waste. There are over 7% households across New Zealand living
with inadequate food and many food companies are taking measures to implement reduction in

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their inventory and waste management and waste audit is one of those methods (Junn, 2019).
Subway is implementing various measures and through this research, the effectiveness of the
waste audit system will be assessed. Based on the findings, recommendations will be provided to
the organization to improve their system.
2. Literature review
Waste management in the food industry
Inventory and waste management is highly important in any product company and when
it comes to the food industry, the inventory and waste management gains more significance as
this industry deals with perishable products. Almost all types of functionalities in this industry
that deals with food products are time as well as cost sensitive, which makes inventory
management very crucial. According to a study by Liang (2013), the food processing and
distribution companies store large amount of food products in a warehouse before supplying to
the shops or directly to the customers. That requires large warehouses and that increases
inventory and management cost and reduces warehouse efficiency. Thus, for perishable products,
inventory management and waste reduction is a big responsibility and the author suggested the
use of inventory prediction model, which can give accurate predictions up to 66.3%, can be
useful for an efficient inventory and waste management in the food industry.
Another study focused on the primary determinants of back-of-house-based food waste in
the food service outlets. In the process of food procurement in a Delish restaurant chain in
Canada, the relationships with the suppliers are found to be not much effective for preventing
food waste (Charlebois, Creedy & von Massow, 2015). According to the employees, the portion
size is not the reason of food waste, and the authors stated that more food waste on the plates

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indicates people are more health conscious and they tend to avoid the starched food, which are
low cost items. Hence, order shorting is highly necessary and at the same time, the chefs are
often bound by corporate agreements that prevent them from altering the menus and that also
prevents waste.
A study by Mena et al. (2014) identified the dominant causes of food waste in the food
supply networks of the UK. By conducting 101 semi-structured interviews of people in different
position in the industry for 15 different commodities, the authors found that quality management,
lack of transparency in demand information, the process controls, packaging and shelf-life
management are some of the foremost causes of food waste in the food supply networks and
thereby these aspects reduces the efficiency of inventory and waste management and this large
scale waste of food also has a negative impact on the sustainability.
Similarly, sustainability in all business aspects is in much focus now, however, the
sustainability of cold chain management is not much prevalent across the world. After
investigation in the Indian food industry, some alarming findings were obtained, such as, that the
food industry often overlooked the sustainability issue due to lack of awareness, and hence, there
is less priority of social responsibility, initiatives for reducing carbon emission, and lack of
training and trained professionals for implementing sustainable practice. Thus, the importance of
inventory and waste management was found to be much less in the Indian food industry and
thus, the level of food waste is higher (Singh & Shabani, 2016).
In the for-profit subdivision of the hospitality sector of the UAE, particularly in Abu
Dhabi, in each step of the food service a large amount of food waste is generated, although the
amounts vary in different levels. It was observed that the serving style and timing generate the

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maximum food waste, followed by type of the food served and prediction about customer turn up
in the restaurants. Thus, the waste generation in food industry is a serious issue that needs to be
mitigated by using sustainable practices (Pirani & Arafat, 2016).
In relation to the above context of sustainability in the food industry, it was highlighted
that the waste of food has detrimental environmental, social and economic impact and the
magnitude of the food waste problem across the world is becoming quite high over the years,
which requires correction on an urgent basis. The authors wrote that in the hospitality sector, the
food waste is fundamentally connected to the way the provision and consumption of food
happen, along with the socio-cultural and material context of consumption of food and waste
generation. Hence, food provisioning is an important aspect for the purpose of regulating and
controlling food waste and implementing efficient inventory and waste management practices
(Papargyropoulou et al., 2016).
Food waste management and its importance
The role of participatory approach for minimizing food waste in the context of bakery
and catering industry was studied by Strotmann et al. (2017). They applied the PDCA (Plan–Do–
Check–Act) cycle in the Total Quality Management in these industries in which the employees
participated in the process of development and implementation of measures for reducing food
waste. This participatory process helped to raise awareness and responsibility of the employees
regarding the importance of reduction in food waste and to increase the resource efficiency in
these industries.
To mitigate the food waste generation in the food supply chain network, the role of
packaging has been emphasized by Verghese et al. (2015). The authors examined the food

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supply chain in Australia’s fresh produce sector and observed that the food waste can be reduced
through efficient packaging which can improve the protection of fresh food products by
regulating the temperature control and ventilation. Moreover, the design of distribution
packaging is also important for reducing the product damage during transportation and handling
and also the home packaging for reducing the food waste by controlling the proportion size and
maintaining proper date labels. The authors also emphasized on improving and increasing the
usage of retail ready packaging to further reduce the food products damage in the supply chain
network. Hence, to improve the efficiency of the inventory and waste management in the food
supply chain network, efficient packaging is required.
In this context, another study can be mentioned. It was highlighted that to establish a
sustainable food supply chain, the invisible food waste in the food service should be identified
and controlled (Derqui, Fayos & Fernandez, 2016). As food waste implies misuse of resources,
the authors observed in the Spanish food service companies only focus on the reduction of the
economic impact of food waste, which can be measured through visible food waste, but the
environmental, ethical and social impacts are often ignored as these wastes are invisible. Thus,
through multi-stakeholder collaboration these can be reduced.
Three aspects of sustainable food security have considered as significant, namely,
demand restraint, efficiency and food system transformation. Food security is a big issue in the
modern world and that must be achieved for the betterment of the current and future generations
and for that purpose, the food production and service companies must improve the above
mentioned aspects (Garnett, 2014).

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In the developing countries, except for Taiwan, the low level of income and inefficient
food waste treatment and recycling technology are major contributors in the increased level of
food waste (Thi, Kumar & Lin, 2015). An overview of the sustainable approaches undertaken by
the Nigerian food industry to achieve improvement in the food waste management shows that,
the companies are now adopting sustainable practices for recycling the food waste to minimize
the impact (Oladepo, Ilori & Taiwo, 2014).
The amount of food waste in America is very high. Up to 40% of the food gets wasted in
their journey from farm to landfill and in the times of rising food insecurity across the world, the
amount of food waste is a big concern. This is worth of USD 165 billion each year and reduction
of food loss by 15% would be enough for feeding more than 25 million Americans where 1 in
every 6 person faces the challenge of food insecurity (Gunders, 2012). Thus, efficiency of the
inventory and waste management should be increased on an urgent basis. Similar study in the
context of New Zealand shows that in 2011, the household sector produced 224,000 tonnes of
food waste and the industry generated 103,000 tonnes. Among these, 7% was fresh produce and
93% was processed food. This was worth of NZ $568 million or NZ $131 per head and this
amount of food waste could be used to feed between 50,000 and 80,000 people a year (Reynolds,
Mirosa & Clothier, 2016). This resource loss is a concern for the New Zealand government. An
efficient system should be designed for recycling, recovering and preventing the huge amount of
food waste for increasing the sustainability options for food security (Mourad, 2016).

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3. Aim and Research question
The aim of this research project is to investigate and examine the effectiveness of the
waste audit system in implementing an efficient food inventory and waste management system in
Subway, the subs and salad restaurant chain in New Zealand and to recommend ways to improve
the system in order to reduce the food waste even more.
The research questions are:
1) What practices are followed in Subway, NZ under food inventory and waste management
system?
2) How is the performance of waste audit system in Subway? Is there any improvement in
the inventory and waste management due to waste audit system?
3) How to improve the inventory and waste management system in Subway through waste
audit system?
4. Scope of research
The scope of this research includes the specific aspects of the waste audit system that is
used in Subway outlets to control the waste of food inventories as well as other resources, like,
capital.
1. The efficiency of the inventory and waste management processes and its impact on the
business performance and sustainability will be explored and evaluated to find out ways
to further improve the operational efficiency and further reduce the food inventory waste
for the organization.

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2. The effect of food waste on the sustainability and human welfare will also be explored
through various literatures to present the significance of the food waste in the modern
world
3. The reasons stating why it is highly important to address this issue by using effective
waste audit and other measures through inventory and waste management system.
5. Method
The research study will follow the primary research method to collect information on the
research topic. As the nature of the study is explanatory, the researcher will follow the deductive
research approach. Deductive research approach allows the researcher to evaluate the research
topic against established theories on the subject by using statistical methods and hypothesis,
while under inductive approach, new perspectives on the topic is generated from the gathered
information (Sekaran & Bougie, 2016).
Following this research approach, the researcher will adopt the case study research
strategy. Subway is chosen as the case study organization. The benefits of choosing case study
are that it is useful in narrowing down the research horizon and gathering information in a real
life set up and hence, providing feasible and practical solutions (Hancock & Algozzine, 2016).
The researcher will collect specific data from the Subway employees to get focused and
controlled information on the research topic.
The researcher will collect primary data from the employees of Subway from various
outlets in Auckland, New Zealand. For the data collection, Interview method will be chosen and
the interview questionnaire will contain 5-6 open ended questions. Structured interview method
will be followed as that would allow the researcher to ask the same questions to all the

9RESEARCH PROPOSAL
respondents and get the answers in a systematic manner. This is beneficial for getting an
overview on the research issue in a much in-depth manner along with personal perspectives.
After the data collection, the responses will be analyzed using qualitative methods.
5 employees from 5 different Subway outlets will be reached out for qualitative data
collection. Convenience sampling is a non-probability sampling technique in which the sample is
selected on the basis of the proximity and easier access (Emerson, 2015).
6. Ethical Implication from data collection method
As the data collection method involves individuals, some ethical considerations will be
followed strictly. An ethical consent will be collected from all the participants. No one will be
forced or bribed to take part in the survey and they will have voluntary participation rights.
Anonymity and data confidentiality should be maintained. No personal information will be
collected from any participant and the data will be used only for academic purpose. The collected
information will be stored in the university database and will be kept confidential as per the data
protection act. Moreover, originality of the paper will be maintained by citing the authentic
sources of critical information.
7. Limitations
Time and budget are the limitations for this study. Due to these limitations, only primary
data will be collected using survey method, which is time and cost effective for collecting large
amount of information. For the analysis purpose, only the quantitative method will be used as
qualitative data will not be collected.

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8. Proposed cost
Items Amount
(NZ $)
Arranging equipment $ 100.00
Visit to library for literature
study
$ 50.00
Making the interview
questions
$ -
Visit to 5 outlets of Subway
for interview
$ 75.00
Circulating the interview
questionnaire through emails
$ -
Miscelleneous expenses (For
eg. Purchasing of a book,
journal or annual report of
Bank of Ireland, cost of print
out, subscription charges, etc.)
$ 250.00
Total $ 475.00

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9. Time line
Months
Task 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Making a strategy
Making a framework
Literature review
Primary data collection
Conducting interview
Data analysis
Presenting the findings
and discussion
Providing the
conclusion
Thesis submission

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Interview questions:
1) How long have you been working with Subway?
2) How is the regular business performance of this outlet?
3) What is opinion on the inventory and waste management in Subway?
4) What is the level of waste on an average in this outlet?
5) Do you feel waste audit can reduce and control the level of waste in Subway?
6) Please suggest how the efficiency of waste management can be improved?

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References
Charlebois, S., Creedy, A., & von Massow, M. (2015). “Back of house”–focused study on food
waste in fine dining: the case of Delish restaurants. International Journal of Culture,
Tourism and Hospitality Research, 9(3), 278-291.
Derqui, B., Fayos, T., & Fernandez, V. (2016). Towards a more sustainable food supply chain:
Opening up invisible waste in food service. Sustainability, 8(7), 693.
Emerson, R. W. (2015). Convenience sampling, random sampling, and snowball sampling: How
does sampling affect the validity of research?. Journal of Visual Impairment &
Blindness, 109(2), 164-168.
Garnett, T. (2014). Three perspectives on sustainable food security: efficiency, demand restraint,
food system transformation. What role for life cycle assessment?. Journal of Cleaner
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Gunders, D. (2012). Wasted: How America Is Losing Up to 40 Percent of Its Food from Farm to
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affairs, 34(11), 1830-1839.
Hancock, D. R., & Algozzine, B. (2016). Doing case study research: A practical guide for
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Junn, J. (2019). New Zealand creates tonnes of food waste. Supermarkets are trying to close the
loop. Retrieved 21 August 2019, from https://thespinoff.co.nz/food/new-world/food-

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waste/06-05-2019/supermarkets-create-tonnes-of-food-waste-every-week-heres-what-
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tonnes, value, calories and resources wasted. Agriculture, 6(1), 9.

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Sekaran, U., & Bougie, R. (2016). Research methods for business: A skill building approach.
John Wiley & Sons.
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Appendix (Survey questions)