Norgesgruppen has announced a pledge to halve the amount of food waste generated in its stores by 2025.
The retailer has teamed up with the Forbruksforskningsinstituttet SIFO (SIFO Consumption Research Institute) at the University of Oslo to conduct a study into how food waste is developed, and what initiatives the retailer can implement in order to cut its contribution.
More than 355,000 tonnes of edible food are discarded annually in Norway, of which the grocery-store sector accounts for 17%. The highest proportion of food waste in the retail channel is generated in fruit and vegetable departments.
Implementing The Strategy
Following a range of interviews with store managers, as well as previously conducted studies in this area, Norgesgruppen has determined that the most promising initiatives to curb food waste involve price cuts, rearranging products and in-store awareness campaigns.
Following the implementation of these strategies, SIFO will conduct follow-up studies to determine their effectiveness, with the objective of indicating how well the participating actors (stores, customers, etc.) respond to said measures.
“The fact that too much edible food goes right in the trash is both an ethical problem and an environmental problem,” said Norgesgruppen CEO Runar Hollevik. “Initiatives that reduce food waste are positive for manufacturers, stores and customers.”
© 2017 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.
