Wasting food affects our ability to achieve economic goals in terms of food security, environmental sustainability, and farm-financial security. Most of the waste reduction ideas proposed to date involve either behavioral nudges or administrative regulations that are either too paternalistic or piecemeal to represent viable solutions. In this study, Arizona State University investigated the potential for commercial peer-to-peer sharing economy firms to emerge as market platforms for the exchange of surplus food. If such a platform is able to develop in a self-sustaining way, then the market prices they create will generate sufficient incentives for all actors to manage surplus food more efficiently.
NIFA supports this research through the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative. Learn more about the economics of food waste at Science Direct.
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