ABSTRACT
Food waste is a growing global challenge requiring all facets of the supply chain to play a role in reducing food entering the waste stream. As part of this and toward the very end of the supply chain, where the majority of food waste is resulting, food retailers and consumers need to work together to reduce otherwise consumable foods entering landfill.
In recent years, numerous enabling technologies have emerged that are, and will continue to, significantly reshape the ways in which consumers interact and engage with the world around them. Such technologies include smartphones, wearables, robotics, artificial intelligence, drones, and augmented and virtual reality. Many businesses, including food retailers, are exploring the opportunities that these technologies may offer to support their business processes and propel the ways in which they interact with their customers and compete within the sector. These technologies will continue to present ongoing opportunities to digitally disrupt, transform and radically change the ways that businesses and retailers engage with their customers, toward more individualised and tailored interaction. However, understanding what these transformations may look like, or how business-to-consumer interactions will evolve, particularly within the food retailer–consumer context, is yet to be realised.
In this chapter, we explore the ways in which food waste and technology interact, with a particular focus on the food retail sector and end consumers. We aim to provide insight into how enabling and emerging technologies are currently being used by food retailers to improve the experience for their customers. We finally explore three high-level scenarios in which, we propose, key emerging technologies may potentially play a role in reshaping the food retail experience for consumers and therefore reduce food waste as a positive outcome. While these scenarios are speculative – albeit, grounded in the current literature – this chapter provides researchers, practitioners, industry and policy makers with the opportunity to explore how food purchasing may be redesigned for the future and with sustainability in mind.
