Preventing Food Waste: Opportunities for Behaviour Change and the Expansion of Food Recovery and Donation in Metro Vancouver

Food waste is a significant public policy problem. My research focus is on consumer and retail/service industry food waste because these sectors offer the largest opportunity to reduce overall food waste in the supply chain. Two categories of policy interventions are chosen to reduce food waste: food waste prevention and food recovery and donation. Academic and government literature are used to inform the background context of the policy problem and select applicable case studies. Case studies from Europe and the United States identify existing policy and program activities in other jurisdictions. My analysis highlights common elements of successful food waste reduction policies and also discusses their limitations. Policy alternatives to prevent food waste are developed and assessed, as is food recovery and donation program design. I recommend a sequential combination of optimal food waste prevention policies. The results of my analysis demonstrate that an educational and awareness campaign can target the root causes of food waste in the food service and retail industry as well as in households. I recommend that increased research and consultation should follow the implementation of an awareness campaign for the formulation of voluntary food waste reduction targets that will ultimately evolve into mandatory, legislated targets. The voluntary targets will inform new research, consultation and baseline data that will assist in the development of regulatory food waste reduction targets. I recommend that any efforts to increase food recovery and donation within Vancouver will require a considerable scale of marketing, research, and outreach to build partnerships between food recovery and donation agencies and food businesses and assist in coordinating and developing their activities.