Perceptions of Food Waste Reduction in Sri Lanka’s Commercial Capital, Colombo

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article takes up an important, topical topic. It was written in a comprehensible and accessible way for the reader. The language is understandable. The only weakness of the article is the small number of cited references. I recommend supplementing the bibliography with at least 7-10 items.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This is an interesting paper to read on a timely topic.

First, this paper needs to be situated within a broader academic literature. While it is fine to develop an empirically based study, it should still be situated within a broader conceptual framework which is developed from the existing research in the field (and existing research gaps). This should be in the front end of the paper to help the reader understand and set up the potential conceptual contribution of the paper. As part of this conceptual framework, the literature review needs to be significantly more developed (beyond the specifics of the case itself). As of now, little is known about food waste or food waste policies for example beyond the case itself. A broader literature on the field should set up the rest of the paper and the research questions (which are still quite specific to the case and less conceptual).

Second, the the methods section could have more detail on what was done and why. What are the strengths and weaknesses of this method and why was it used? 

Third, while the results are generally well presented and well discussed, the boxes seems misplaced in this paper. They seem more appropriate for a report than an academic paper. Also, although the results are interesting to read, the organization of the results section could be a bit more logical to make the themes/main ideas a bit clearer and to make the connection to specific research findings clearer. Right now, it is not clear where your evidence comes from, as it is sometimes unclear when something you say is a finding vs. a point of view vs. broader analysis. Possibly, create more direct citations/references to your study evidence to back up your claims. Another option would be to create tables/diagrams that could further highlight these themes/discussions.

Fourth, more analysis is needed in the end of the paper to examine the significance of the paper's findings, contribution to broader literature, and areas for future research. This gap is related to the lack of the conceptual framework and literature review underdeveloped at the front end of the paper.

Fifth, the paper needs to written more clearly. Beginning in the abstract and through the rest of the paper, the author could spend more time smoothing over the readability of the draft. There are lots of typos in the manuscript.

Good luck with the revisions.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

“Perceptions of food waste reduction in Sri Lanka’s commercial capital, Colombo” is a very interesting paper, which I feel could give a good contribution to the discipline. First, it is an original study; secondly, I like the qualitative approach that, unfortunately, is rare in the food waste studies.

I would like to give some suggestions in order to enrich the study which, at this stage, look more like a report as it misses the link with all the background discipline.

Good luck with your work.

Introduction

The goal of the study is clearly stated at line 75 “this study describes a first analysis of food waste perceptions of businesses in Colombo’s food retail and food service sectors”, but this goal shows up as a surprise for the reader, since the relevance of these specific stages of the food supply chain has not been mentioned earlier. So, I would suggest 2 things:

1. Locate the country in the macro-analysis that are usually mentioned in the literature (see FAO, 2011-2013): develop or developing country? What the data you propose in the literature suggest? More food loss or food waste, on the whole?
2. Within this distinction, why did you target some specific stages of the food supply chain instead of others? In lines (69-73) you talk about consumer food waste, so the reader might assume you are going towards the household analysis, which is not the case.
3. How is the study located in the international literature? What previous studies tell us about food waste at open markets, supermarkets, hotels, restaurants, canteens, catering? They are a lot of stages, so I expect some good background for each, highlighting the most crucial issues- divided in sub-paragraph maybe?
4. What about other countries’ food waste policy agendas? Are you aware of any? What is the role of food waste hierarchy in addressing policy in Sri Lanka, is it considered?

Methodology

What is the methodological approach and background? Qualitative, R.Yin’s case study , others comparative?

Line 110 “For this, the interview partners were to 75% in a senior managing position, if not the owner of the entity”: how do you think this might have influenced the results? Was it a specific choice and if yes, why? There are also studies interviewing in-store food category managers, for instance, do you think it could be appropriate to try a comparison and see how the vision diverges, as food category managers are on field day-by-day?

128- 135 It is not clear how you got to classify business in the three sections (satisfied, challenge, part of business). How did you classified the answers? Can you report about the questions, at least, that you made them? (maybe Fereday and Muir-Cochrane / Boyatszis)?

A paragraph “limitations of the study” is missing, either referred to the methodology or the results.

Results:

Results are fine if NOT discussed only when there is a Discussion paragraph. You might decide not to use a discussion paragraph but then, you have to discuss results together with previous literature and considerations that are able to explain them in light of the existing studies- otherwise it’s more like a report.

Any distinction between markets, canteens and supermarkets in the final assessment?

Moreover, anything to be discussed about Figure 1? If you look at previous literature, you’ll see that every time you ask a respondent to assess its own food waste he/she will say you that he/she doesn’t waste, and it is valid also for business and companies, if owned. Even in the case they declare food waste to be a challenge, then they will say that it is beyond their control / responsibility or it is just a little food waste in their case. So, your results appear perfectly coherent with previous findings, perhaps depending on the method selected (questionnaire/interview) rather than the effective situation.

Box1: looks a credit to the companies, which is not that scientific. I would suggest to delete it or re-write it as a third-party story (now giving too much credit to the company, looks like copy-pasted from their CSR).

References

For a scientific paper, you need to contextualize your findings in light of the existing scientific background and discuss it- references are poor and missing here. I’ll add you some references that I know very well, hope they are useful but I am sure that there are many more ref and more appropriate to your article, so I suggest you to give a look to the SCOPUS/WOS literature.  

Methodology

• Crabtree, B.F.; Miller, W.F. A Template Approach to Text Analysis: Developing and Using Codebooks; SAGE: Thousand Oaks, CA, USA, 1992
• Boyatzis, R.E. Transforming Qualitative Information: Thematic Analysis and Code Development; SAGE: Thousand Oaks, CA, USA, 1998; ISBN 0761909613.
• Corrado et al., Food waste accounting methodologies: Challenges, opportunities, and further advancements, Global Food Security, Volume 20, March 2019, Pages 93-100
• Elimelech et al, Exploring the Drivers behind Self-Reported and Measured Food Wastage. Sustainability2019, 11

Policy

• Papargyropoulou, R. Lozano, J.K. Steinberger, N. Wright, Z. Ujang bin The food waste hierarchy as a framework for the management of food surplus and food waste, J. Clean. Prod., 76 (2014), pp. 106-115, 10.1016/j.jclepro.2014.04.020
• Mourad M., (2016) Recycling, recovering and preventing “food waste”: competing solutions for food systems sustainability in the United States and France, Journal of Cleaner Production, Volume 126, 10 July 2016, Pages 461-477
• Devin, B., Richards, C. Food Waste, Power, and Corporate Social Responsibility in the Australian Food Supply Chain. J Bus Ethics 150, 199–210 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-016-3181-z
• Corvellec Waste policies gone soft: An analysis of European and Swedish waste prevention plans Waste Management Volume 77, July 2018, Pages 322-332
• Giordano et al., The role of food waste hierarchy in addressing policy and research: A comparative analysis, Journal of Cleaner Production,
  Volume 252, 2020, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.11961

Retail

• Cicatiello et al., “If only I Could Decide”: Opinions of Food Category Managers on in-Store Food Waste. Sustainability 2020, 12, 8592
• Lebersorger, S.; Schneider, F. Food loss rates at the food retail, influencing factors and reasons as a basis for waste prevention measures. Waste Manag. 2014, 34, 1911–1919.
• Balakrishna Grandhi & Jyothsna Appaiah Singh (2016) What a Waste! A Study of Food Wastage Behavior in Singapore, Journal of Food Products Marketing, 22:4, 471-485, DOI: 10.1080/10454446.2014.885863
• Gruber V, Holweg C, Teller C. What a Waste! Exploring the Human Reality of Food Waste from the Store Manager’s Perspective. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing. 2016;35(1):3-25. doi:10.1509/jppm.14.095
• Roselund, J.; Nyblon, Å.; Matschke Ekholm, H.; Sorme, L. The emergence of food waste as an issue in Swedish retail.  Food J. 2020
• Eriksson, M.; Ghosh, R.; Mattsson, L.; Ismatov, A. Take-back agreements in the perspective of food waste generation at the supplier-retailer interface.  Conserv. Recycl. 2017, 122, 83–93. 

Canteens

• Ferreira et al., Food waste as an index of foodservice quality, British Food Journal 2013
• Blondin, S., Djang, H., Metayer, N., Anzman-Frasca, S., & Economos, C. (2015). ‘It’s just so much waste.’ A qualitative investigation of food waste in a universal free School Breakfast Program. Public Health Nutrition,18(9), 1565-1577. doi:10.1017/S1368980014002948
• Silvennoinen et al., Food waste volume and origin: Case studies in the Finnish food service sector, Waste Management Volume 46, December 2015, Pages 140-145
• Eriksson et al., (2018) The tree structure — A general framework for food waste quantification in food services, Resources, Conservation and Recycling, Volume 130, March 2018, Pages 140-151
• Boschini et al Why the waste? A large-scale study on the causes of food waste at school canteens, Journal of Cleaner Production, Volume 246, 10 February 2020, 118994
• Filimonau et al., Food waste management in Shanghai full-service restaurants: A senior managers’ perspective, Journal of Cleaner Production Volume 258, 10 June 2020, 120975

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper is improved from its original submission, as the authors have addressed the suggestions of the academic reviewers. 

At this point, I would suggest improving the writing quality of the paper to maximize clarity. While this should be addressed throughout the paper, the abstract and the introduction are probably the places the deserve the most attention to writing quality.

Good work!

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Line 56: bylaws (split the 2 words)

Lines 265-266: “It was observed that absence of capacity and mechanism to measure and monitor the food waste generated appeared to be one of the reasons for missing action as expressed by another restaurant”- (I think this finding is very relevant, should be mentioned in the conclusions somehow. Only the European Union has a standardized methodology in the world so far, and it is both recent-2019- and not widely known. So, what about the recommendation to design a standardized methodology to account and quantify food waste at all stages for Sri Lanka? This is typically a FAO work but the Ministry of Environment of all the countries should include one in their waste management plans towards SDG 12.3. ).

Line 547:  A similar challenge has been reported from Italy by Giuseppe et al. (2014) [30]. (The correct reference nr 30 is Aiello et al., as Aiello is the surname ? , please, correct)

Overall: I enjoyed your paper, as it gives an overview of the food waste issue in Sri Lanka, but I feel contents could be better organized. I suggest to re-write at least "conclusions". What I really see missing in your contribution is clear recommendations and suggestions on how to follow up on real and concrete actions to reduce food waste from a policy point of view. I would suggest to rewrite the conclusions as if you have to give them to a policy maker, who is not expert and that only has 2 minutes to read and adopt your measures against food waste based on your scientific evidence. For instance, based on your evidence, what’s the most effective action that you suggest to reduce food waste in large hotels? And what about open markets? You mention many types of retailers, I would expect dedicated suggestion for each or, alternatively, a sum-up of grouped recommendations with reference to the most relevant retailers. For instance, “solution a + b + c could address food waste for retailers and markets mostly, while solution b + d could result more effective in small retailers and canteens”. This would really help the reader to easily follow your results. Moreover, how do you discuss the state of the art of the FW policy in Sri Lanka against existing policy actions in other countries? What would you suggest to FAO, UNEP and SriLanka policy makers to asses and reduce food waste in Sri Lanka, based on your evidences: would you follow the French Italian or US example, mostly? Check if the papers below can be of help (feel free to add them if relevant). I know you said this is not a policy overview but I really feel the way it is, looks more like a report: discussing results against existing literature is usually necessary for a scientific paper. However, if you can't because of FAO reasons you mentioned, I PERFECTLY understand. 

Good luck with your study!

Muraud, M. (2016) Recycling, recovering and preventing " food waste ": competing solutions for food systems sustainability in the United States and France, Journal of Cleaner Production, 2016

Giordano C., Falasconi L., Cicatiello C., Pancino B. The role of food waste hierarchy in addressing policy and research: A comparative analysis, Journal of Cleaner Production,Volume 252, 2020, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.119617

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf