Significance Of Food Losses In The German Food Industry: A Qualitative Research

Sustainability has become an important issue in the food industry, which will probably still increase in the future. Meanwhile, a variety of food products are advertised with various sustainability aspects and companies of the food industry drive different strategies to get a better environmental achievement. In this context, the topic of food losses gains in importance, too. By means of qualitative interviews with experts of leading companies in the German food sector, the issue of food losses was obtained to get an insight into the topic by manufacturing companies and to show how they implement this issue. In total, in the agri-food industry the topic of food losses is of high relevance, and although consumers show great interest in environmental friendly products or companies, no company uses the topic of food losses as a differentiating factor in competition. But due to previous investigations regarding consumer behaviour concerning environmental conscious products, there are ways to get advantages in competition.