A study on food waste reduction policies with a particular focus on food donation

Abstract

Food waste accounted for around one-third of the total municipal solid waste disposed at landfills. Apart from food waste reduction at source, food donation is considered as the second most important option of all in the Food Waste Management Hierarchy. Yet, limited momentum has been built in food donation, especially in C&I sector. This study aimed to investigate the knowledge and attitude of different stakeholders on their food donation management and its respective measures, including their key impetuses and difficulties in food donation; as well as exploring new opportunities to improve and promote food donation in Hong Kong by studying overseas practices. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used in this paper for data collection. Quantitative information was collected through 3 sets of online questionnaire from 219 members of the general public, 1 food company and 12 hotels respectively in February-April 2018; while qualitative information was collected in March-April 2018 from 3 face-to-face and 1 phone interviews with 4 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and food banks from the food support service industry. The results of the public survey revealed that “the lack of knowledge on food donation channels and procedures” was the major difficulties faced by the public during food donation. Meanwhile, the hotel sector pointed out that “lack of support from the government” was their major difficulties during food donation. On the other hand, although the government believed that contractual agreements between food donors and food banks can effectively solve the liability problem of donors in food safety, this is not true in real scenarios according to our interviewees, since the legal effectiveness of these contractual agreements are not guaranteed. Enactment of food donation law possibly served as the best solution to the food liability problem. In view of possible measures in promoting food donation, most respondents believed that education was the best and ultimate solution in driving behavior change and encouraging food donation in the community. Moreover, some pointed out the importance of changing public’s mindset on the perception of food donation. Instead of treating food donation merely as a gratuitous act, the public should recognize food donation more as a solution to their surplus food wastage problems.