Annotated Bibliography on UK Retail Sector's Food Waste Reduction

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8th-July-2018

The requirement of the assignment is to do annotated bibliography based analysis on one of the
provided topic. For this assignment the topic chosen is: How can the UK Retail sector further reduce
food waste?
Title: UK supermarkets face mounting pressure to cut food waste
Reference: UK supermarkets face mounting pressure to cut food waste. (2018, July 8th). Retrieved
from Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/oct/21/uk-supermarkets-pressure-
cut-food-waste
Summary: This article focusses on how UK supermarkets face mounting pressure to cut food waste.
The pressure is immense and hence somehow the Govt. Action is needed in this space.
Strength and Weakness: There have been huge calls to end multi-buy deals and some other
marketing tools which Tesco practises. Research in this space has revealed that this kind of deals
lead to huge wastage of breads and salad. The article highlights how a big supermarket chain
recently dropped such promotions highlighting the concerns of huge wastage.
Reflect: Tesco has gone to the extent and revealed how 65% of the bagged salad was turned into
waste and there was a need to stop it. Tesco has done extensive research on the waste and helped
formulating decisions which will ultimately reduce waste. This announcement to reduce waste came
after the fact that Tesco recently also announced that it intends to cut down wastage across the
international supply chain in which operates.
Title: Supermarkets should be cutting food waste, not relying on charities
Reference: Papargyropoulou, E., Lozano, R., Steinberger, J. K., Wright, N., & bin Ujang, Z. (2014). The
food waste hierarchy as a framework for the management of food surplus and food waste. Journal of
Cleaner Production, 76, 106-115.
Summary: There has been a huge outrage on the food wastage in Britain and retailers action on it.
Modern day retail formats are only finding charity as the possible solution for eradicating the
wastage solution.
Strength and Weakness: The article highlights how Sainsbury nearly donated 3,000 tonnes of food in
last year itself. The numbers sound very impressive however it was important to note that this is
only 7% of the total surplus possible wastage that they were managing. The over production of
bread was one of the concerned challenge. The demand forecast must be going horribly wrong and
the management of the same is a real issue.
Reflect: This wastage still doesn’t account for the other part of wastage which occurs in the supply
chain. The article also suggest how a truly focusses systematic approach can be the only way in
which the problem can be addressed.
Title: How Large Food Retailers Can Help Solve the Food Waste Crisis
Reference: How Large Food Retailers Can Help Solve the Food Waste Crisis. (2018, July 8th).
Retrieved from Harvard Business Review: https://hbr.org/2017/12/how-large-food-retailers-can-
help-solve-the-food-waste-crisis