Food waste management in the retail sector: challenges that hinder transition to circular economy

The retail sector is one of the growing sectors all over the world. As the sector grows, the amount of food waste generated increases, and waste management becomes more complicated day by day. The amount of waste produced, especially in the food retail sector, shows how much waste management policies should be planned. However, waste management policies cannot be carried out effectively in the food retail sector, especially in emerging economies. Since waste management is not well planned, it faces many difficulties in recycling activities. For this purpose, the study aims to investigate the challenges encountered in the inability to evaluate food wastes in the retail sector within the framework of circular economy to highlight retailer markets to have effective waste management policies. For this reason, 16 challenges of food waste management were listed, and the relations of these challenges with each other were analyzed with the fuzzy TISM method. As a result of the study, challenges are determined as the most crucial issues for food waste management in the retail sector. As managerial and policy implications, suggestions are made on the necessity of new policies, the usability of Industry 4.0 technologies for the problem, i.e. in the retail sector.