Disposing the future : An institutional analysis of municipal food waste prevention in Sweden

Sammanfattning: Food waste is a complex issue with environmental, social, and economic consequences. Approximately one third of the food produced for human consumption is annually wasted and the need to prevent food waste is discussed in the public debate, policy outcomes, and sustainable development goals. Food waste prevention is complex and need to be practiced all along the food supply chain. In Sweden, municipalities are self-governing entities that have been assigned the formal responsibility to prevent food waste among households and municipal functions. However, the distributed responsibility and complexity around food waste prevention entail various barriers to successfully implement food waste prevention strategies. The purpose of this study is thus to investigate how institutions influence municipal food waste prevention. The study is inspired by an ethnographic approach and is founded on an empirical material consisting of 137 waste plans and 10 interviews with municipal and public authority representatives. An institutional perspective is applied to understand how institutions influence municipal food waste prevention. The results from the analysis conclude that a) food waste prevention strategies in Sweden construct the consumer as the main cause of food waste generation; b) the institutionalized freedom of choice is perceived as a barrier to implement stronger food waste prevention strategies such as regulation or legislation; and c) institutions offer an important component to understand the construction of the problem around food waste prevention.