Consumers Prefer Retailers Committed to Fighting Food Waste: New Data

Consumers want to shop at retailers that are committed to fixing the global issue of food waste, according to a new survey commissioned by Afresh Technologies — a company dedicated to building solutions that eliminate waste.

Almost 60% of the respondents to the survey conducted by Momentive said that they are extremely or very concerned about food waste, with another 36% of people saying that they're somewhat concerned. This concern manifests in their trying to reduce food waste at home (86%) and while dining out (57%). A little more than half (52%) try to reduce food waste while grocery shopping, an idea that significantly increased once they knew the magnitude of the food waste issue at retail.

Once they learned that retail is responsible for 43 billion pounds of food waste each year, nearly three-quarters (72%) said that they would support a grocery store committed to reducing food waste. Prior to learning this, only 27% thought that they could help reduce food waste by supporting a grocery store, but afterward, 49% said that they would feel like they were contributing to the cause by shopping at a store that's reducing food waste.

Additionally, if shoppers know a store is committed to reducing food waste, they are significantly more likely to support the store. The survey showed that:

• 63% will feel more compelled to shop there.
• 52% would shop there more frequently.
• 52% would recommend the store to family and friends.

“We launched Afresh to end food waste by building the brain powering the global fresh food industry. We are starting by helping grocery stores optimize the quantity of fresh food delivered to the store each day and have big ambitions to expand throughout the supply chain,” said Matt Schwartz, co-founder and CEO of San Francisco-based Afresh.

The company helps grocery stores manage and optimize fresh forecasting, inventory, ordering, merchandising and operations by giving fresh department managers AI-powered insights and intuitive tooling as part of its Fresh Operating System. According to Afresh, grocers that use its software have seen dramatic reductions in food waste and achieved superior in-stock rates for shoppers, as well as a significant increase in operating margins.

[To learn how Afresh's AI-powered solution is powering profitable fresh departments, view our on-demand webinar “Fresh is the Future: How a Unified, Fresh-First Solution Gets You There.”]

“The retailers we partner with are committed to big sustainability goals that include significant reductions in food waste, and this research demonstrates that consumers support stores that value sustainability and are taking positive actions to address the food waste issue,” said Schwartz.