Buy Three to Waste One? How Real-World Purchase Data Predict Groups of Food Wasters

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The results of the research presented in the article bring significant insights for target group interventions carried out by retailers.  

The literature review encompasses relevant prior research in the field. The methodology used is sound.

The article can be published as it is. 

Congratulations to the authors for the research.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 1

Thank you for evaluating and accepting our manuscript.

Sincerely,

Sybilla Merian

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper is written in an acceptable way but it is not always clear. It is relevant for the field and it is presented in an acceptable structured manner. The reasoning seems sound. The research has been designed in an appropriate way but the methodology employed is not without problems. The cited references could be more updated (more recent publications). Nevertheless, are relevant.

The paper is scientifically sound and the methodology adopted is appropriate for the study. But, at the same time it is a little bit confusing. The “two cluster procedure” create a mental obstacle to the reader trying to follow authors’ logic. Even the methodology employed in terms of appropriateness is ok, it is difficult to understand the argument. The authors have tried to tackle the huge amount of primary data from the retailer. This is right. But the presentation of the four-stage methodology seems to confuse the reader. There are so many sub-groups which do not provide a clear picture to the reader. Authors have to find a better way of presenting the stages of their methodological procedures.

Moreover, there are some questions relative to the methodology:

-        Authors do not mention which period and for how long they delivered and collected the self-reports questionnaires

-        Do they adopt any type of pilot study?

-        When the validation procedure of the 40 households took place? Before the distribution of self-report questionnaires? After?

-        Do these 40 households participate in the sample of 165 households?

-        I n the case that these 40 households are not within the others in the sample, which were the criteria of selecting them?

-        Also, it is not clear when the participants answer the questions for their FW intention, behaviours and control [par. 2.2.4/2.2.5]? Before starting to self-evaluate their food waste behaviour or after they complete the FW estimates?

-        The data are representing one week FW? Is this right? Authors mentioned “weekly” but probably there is a need to be more accurate and analytic.

-        Which is the notion behind the selection of the specific 6 questions out of eight? Is there any pattern?

-        In line 248 authors suggest to consult table 2 …is this correct?

 -        Table 6 contains a large amount of information. Authors have my sympathy… I do not know if there is another possible way of providing a part of these info to the appendix

-        In line 373 authors mentioned “… our analyses of real food waste data…” …which is the meaning of “real”?

 Generally, authors have tried to sketch/describe their serious attempt to measure food waste and provide a deck of interventions strategies for the retailers and marketing executives. They have to manage all these valuable information -a difficult task indeed- and to presented in a better way so to help the reader to follow their logic and understand their valuable contribution. Maybe a better way of presenting some tables or even move some of them or part of the information contained to the appendix, could make the paper more readable and enjoyable. For example, it will be nice to provide a table with the 3 cluster characteristics – except the in-text presentation.  

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 2

Thank you for evaluating our manuscript and for raising your comments. Below, we respond to them.

The paper is written in an acceptable way but it is not always clear. It is relevant for the field and it is presented in an acceptable structured manner. The reasoning seems sound. The research has been designed in an appropriate way but the methodology employed is not without problems.

The cited references could be more updated (more recent publications). Nevertheless, are relevant. The paper is scientifically sound and the methodology adopted is appropriate for the study. But, at the same time it is a little bit confusing. The “two cluster procedure” create a mental obstacle to the reader trying to follow authors’ logic. Even the methodology employed in terms of appropriateness is ok, it is difficult to understand the argument. The authors have tried to tackle the huge amount of primary data from the retailer. This is right. But the presentation of the four-stage methodology seems to confuse the reader. There are so many sub-groups which do not provide a clear picture to the reader. Authors have to find a better way of presenting the stages of their methodological procedures.

Thanks for raising concerns about the readability of our manuscript. To increase the clarity of our methodology, we included a visualization of our analysis procedure with an additional, very brief explanation for why we chose to do a preliminary dimension reduction (see page 11). In fact, we believe that the dimension reduction also reduces the complexity of our manuscript.

Additionally, we added some more recent papers on the topic.

 

Moreover, there are some questions relative to the methodology:

Many thanks for raising these aspects of clarification.

1. Authors do not mention which period and for how long they delivered and collected the self-reports questionnaires

We adapted the initial text, by specifying the data collection period (see line 150).

 

2. Do they adopt any type of pilot study?

Prior to the start of the main study, no pilot study was conducted.

 

3. When the validation procedure of the 40 households took place? Before the distribution of self-report questionnaires? After?

In line with your comment, we added the necessary information about the validation study (see lines 183-184).

 

4. Do these 40 households participate in the sample of 165 households?

We now specifically mention that the 40 households participating in the validation study were not part of the main cluster analysis (see lines 182-183).

 

5. I n the case that these 40 households are not within the others in the sample, which were the criteria of selecting them?

In line with your suggestion, we now provide more information about how we collected the 40 households of our validation study (see lines 174-175).

6. Also, it is not clear when the participants answer the questions for their FW intention, behaviours and control [par. 2.2.4/2.2.5]? Before starting to self-evaluate their food waste behaviour or after they complete the FW estimates?

As per suggestion, we now explicitly describe the lacking information about our methodological procedure (see line 207)

 

7. The data are representing one week FW? Is this right? Authors mentioned “weekly” but probably there is a need to be more accurate and analytic.

The questionnaire does not represent weekly data, but average data. Participants were asked to report what percentage they have wasted in the past. We used data from half a year prior to answering the survey (as basis to derive food waste measures, assuming that this represents the current consumption habits, see lines 203-205).

 

8. Which is the notion behind the selection of the specific 6 questions out of eight? Is there any pattern?

Unfortunately, we do not fully understand what is meant by “questions”. If this is about the 6 of our 8 predictors for which we conducted the primary dimension reduction, we added a clarification in the text (lines 266-267). Explicitly adding such a clarification made our procedure clearer.

 

9. In line 248 authors suggest to consult table 2 …is this correct?

Thank you for your careful reading. We made the necessary change (line 264).

 

10. Table 6 contains a large amount of information. Authors have my sympathy… I do not know if there is another possible way of providing a part of these info to the appendix.

Thank you for your comment. We gave our best to shorten our manuscript and tables. To reduce the complexity of the information presented in table 6, we added figures that show the profiles of the different segments and integrated table 6 in table 8 in the appendix.

 

11. In line 373 authors mentioned “… our analyses of real food waste data…” …which is the meaning of “real”?

We fully agree that we must be more specific. As per suggestion, we made the necessary adaption (see lines 392-394). By real food waste we meant the actual food wasting data that we have collected during the validation study. Based on the food wasting behavior of the household in the main sample we divided the validation study sample into three groups with distinct wasting patterns and then compared how well they performed in reporting food waste.

 

Generally, authors have tried to sketch/describe their serious attempt to measure food waste and provide a deck of interventions strategies for the retailers and marketing executives. They have to manage all these valuable information -a difficult task indeed - and to presented in a better way so to help the reader to follow their logic and understand their valuable contribution. Maybe a better way of presenting some tables or even move some of them or part of the information contained to the appendix, could make the paper more readable and enjoyable. For example, it will be nice to provide a table with the 3 cluster characteristics – except the in-text presentation.

Thanks for your valuable criticism. Based on your suggestion, we added figures (see figures 4-6) depicting the three segments’ characteristics in combination with some concrete propositions for the design of effective behavior change interventions. Overall, we think that the idea to present the linkage between our results and potential interventions in a visual way helps to better understand our manuscript.

Sincerely,

Sybilla Merian

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors,

 

The focus of your work is essential for the world. Your wording is precise. Congratulations!

 

However, some improvements to the manuscript text appear to be necessary. I will list these points below.

 

The analysis of the literature seems to disregard important previous works. In particular, those studies that focused on supermarkets. A preliminary list of these relevant works is presented at the end.

 

The presentation of a typology of consumers is not enough to guide the actions of supermarkets. To improve their manuscript, the authors need to be more explicit about how food retailers can use the findings.

 

Please try to be more specific about how the identified segments contribute to previous peer-reviewed studies in the literature.

 

The text in Table 1 needs to be moved to different paragraphs (before the Table). The Table should only summarize what is presented in these previous paragraphs.

 

The final part of the introduction needs to be more precise about the contribution of the findings to filling recent and relevant gaps in the literature.

 

The discussion part needs to be revised entirely. As it is, the text seems to focus only on the alignment or misalignment of the findings (concerning the literature). This style of discussion is fragile. I suggest that authors review the discussion of other published work before checking this section.

 

Confrontation with the challenges faced by supermarkets needs to be further explored. It is not enough to say that the findings can be used. The text needs to make clear where and how the results can be used. Furthermore, it is necessary to mention the limitations in consideration of these findings by retailers.

 

Please review the practical implications section.

 

 

1.     ARUNRAJ, N. S.; AHRENS, D. A hybrid seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average and quantile regression for daily food sales forecasting. International Journal of Production Economics, v. 170, p. 321–335, 2015.

2.     DE HOOGE, I. E.; VAN DULM, E.; VAN TRIJP, H. C. M. Cosmetic specifications in the food waste issue: Supply chain considerations and practices concerning suboptimal food products. Journal of Cleaner Production, v. 183, p. 698–709, 2018.

3.     DE SOUZA, M. et al. A digitally enabled circular economy for mitigating food waste: Understanding innovative marketing strategies in the context of an emerging economy. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, v. 173, n. July, p. 121062, 2021.

4.     DEVIN, B.; RICHARDS, C. Food Waste, Power, and Corporate Social Responsibility in the Australian Food Supply Chain. Journal of Business Ethics, v. 150, n. 1, p. 199–210, 2018.

5.     FENG, Y.; LAI, K. HUNG; ZHU, Q. Green supply chain innovation: Emergence, adoption, and challenges. International Journal of Production Economics, v. 248, p. 108497, 1 jun. 2022.

6.     FILIMONAU, V.; GHERBIN, A. An exploratory study of food waste management practices in the UK grocery retail sector. Journal of Cleaner Production, v. 167, p. 1184–1194, 2018.

7.     FREI, R.; JACK, L.; KRZYZANIAK, S. A. Sustainable reverse supply chains and circular economy in multichannel retail returns. Business Strategy and the Environment, v. 29, n. 5, p. 1925–1940, 2020.

8.     GOKARN, S.; KUTHAMBALAYAN, T. S. Creating sustainable fresh produce supply chains by managing uncertainties. Journal of Cleaner Production, v. 207, p. 908–919, 2019.

9.     GUSTAVO, J. U. et al. Green marketing in supermarkets: Conventional and digitized marketing alternatives to reduce waste. Journal of Cleaner Production, v. 296, p. 126531, maio 2021.

10.  KUMAR, A. et al. Challenges in perishable food supply chains for sustainability management: A developing economy perspective. Business Strategy and the Environment, v. 29, n. 5, p. 1809–1831, jul. 2020.

11.  LU, G.; LEE, H. S.; SON, J. Product variety in local grocery stores: Differential effects on stock-keeping unit level sales. Journal of Operations Management, v. 68, n. 1, p. 33–54, 1 jan. 2022.

12.  MENA, C.; ADENSO-DIAZ, B.; YURT, O. The causes of food waste in the supplier–retailer interface: Evidences from the UK and Spain. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, v. 55, n. 6, p. 648–658, abr. 2011.

13.  MESSNER, R.; JOHNSON, H.; RICHARDS, C. From surplus-to-waste: A study of systemic overproduction, surplus and food waste in horticultural supply chains. Journal of Cleaner Production, v. 278, p. 123952, 2021.

14.  MOURAD, M. Recycling, recovering and preventing “food waste”: Competing solutions for food systems sustainability in the United States and France. Journal of Cleaner Production, v. 126, n. 2, p. 461–477, jul. 2016.

15.  PAN, F. et al. Perishable product bundling with logistics uncertainty: Solution based on physical internet. International Journal of Production Economics, v. 244, p. 108386, 1 fev. 2022.

16.  PAPARGYROPOULOU, E. et al. The food waste hierarchy as a framework for the management of food surplus and food waste. Journal of Cleaner Production, v. 76, p. 106–115, 2014.

17.  SCHANES, K.; DOBERNIG, K.; GÖZET, B. Food waste matters - A systematic review of household food waste practices and their policy implications. Journal of Cleaner Production, v. 182, p. 978–991, 2018.

18.  TELLER, C. et al. Retail store operations and food waste. Journal of Cleaner Production, v. 185, p. 981–997, jun. 2018.

19.  YEO, S. F. et al. The role of food apps servitization on repurchase intention: A study of FoodPanda. International Journal of Production Economics, v. 234, p. 108063, 1 abr. 2021. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 3

Thank you for evaluating our manuscript and for mentioning very valuable points. We respond to your comments below.

The analysis of the literature seems to disregard important previous works. In particular, those studies that focused on supermarkets. A preliminary list of these relevant works is presented at the end.

 

We thank the reviewer for sharing this concern. We added some more literature on how retailers can contribute to food waste reduction (e.g., de Hooge et al., 2018; de Souza et al., 2021; Schanes et al., 2018; Teller et al., 2018), both within the store as well as along the food supply chain. As our manuscript focuses on how retailers can help to reduce food waste on the consumer level, we do not discuss suggested literature that focuses on the production and distribution level in detail. Yet, we agree with you that retailers are key players in the mitigation of food waste in the whole supply chain, from production to consumption. Note that we added a paragraph at the end of our manuscript, where we stress the importance of the literature mentioned by you. We are happy to replace the chosen references or add additional ones if this helps to make our storyline clearer.

 

The presentation of a typology of consumers is not enough to guide the actions of supermarkets. To improve their manuscript, the authors need to be more explicit about how food retailers can use the findings. Please try to be more specific about how the identified segments contribute to previous peer-reviewed studies in the literature.

 

We fully agree with this point. Thanks a lot. To address this comment, we drafted some more concrete interventions that are based on our results and heavily refer to stage models of behavioral change (e.g., Bamberg, 2013). Additionally, we also presented some initial ideas about media (e.g., retailer’s app, webpage, newspaper) that retailers could use for the different interventions.

 

The text in Table 1 needs to be moved to different paragraphs (before the Table). The Table should only summarize what is presented in these previous paragraphs.

 

Many thanks again to the reviewer for this comment. Based on other comments that strongly recommended trying to reduce the complexity of the manuscript, we decided to not add the operationalization of the different predictors to the text. Although this table does not summarize the preceding text, we strongly believe that this makes the text better readable.

 

 

The final part of the introduction needs to be more precise about the contribution of the findings to filling recent and relevant gaps in the literature.

 

Thanks for this comment! We revised the introduction and specifically mention three concrete contributions to the existing literature on food waste (see lines 121-142).

 

The discussion part needs to be revised entirely. As it is, the text seems to focus only on the alignment or misalignment of the findings (concerning the literature). This style of discussion is fragile. I suggest that authors review the discussion of other published work before checking this section.

Confrontation with the challenges faced by supermarkets needs to be further explored. It is not enough to say that the findings can be used. The text needs to make clear where and how the results can be used. Furthermore, it is necessary to mention the limitations in consideration of these findings by retailers.

Please review the practical implications section.

 

Regarding the discussion, we fully agree with the reviewer. One of our major contributions, the use of digital receipts as a tool to not just recognize food waste pattern but also for the design of interventions was not emphasized enough. To correct this, we emphasized that we want to validate this novel approach, by setting our findings in the context of existing literature but then also provide further insights for retailers (practical implications). Thanks for pointing this out!

In line with the second paragraph in the text above, we additionally proposed more concrete interventions and embedded them into a theoretical foundation (stage model of behavior change, Bamberg, 2013). Although our survey does, due to missing psychological constructs, not allow for the use of such an integrative behavioral change model, we draft interventions based on them and provide insights for future research.

Sincerely,

Sybilla Merian

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

As the authors provide a re-organization of their paper as well as some new parts/insights across all the sessions of the paper following the suggestions/comments of the reviewers, it will indeed stimulate a discussion within the relative literature.

Reviewer 3 Report

No more commnets.