TY - JOUR
T1 - Food waste in the sharing economy
AU - Richards, Timothy J.
AU - Hamilton, Stephen F.
N1 - Funding Information:
Funding from Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (National Institute for Food and Agriculture, USDA) Grant No. 2016-09900 is gratefully acknowledged.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2018/2
Y1 - 2018/2
N2 - Wasting food is one of the rare problems that affects our ability to achieve economic goals in terms of food security, environmental sustainability, and farm-financial security. Most of the ideas proposed to this point involve either behavioral nudges or administrative regulations that are either too paternalistic or piecemeal to represent viable solutions. In this study, we investigate the potential for commercial peer-to-peer mutualization systems (CPMSs), or sharing-economy firms, to emerge as market platforms for the exchange of surplus food. If a system of CPMSs 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. We develop an empirical model of a CPMS operating as a platform in a two-sided market, and examine its viability using data from one of the first CPMS firms in the surplus-harvest industry, Imperfect Produce, Inc. Empirical estimates of a two-sided network-demand model show that user-demand rises in the number of growers shipping to the platform, and grower demand for distribution rises in the number of users. Our findings indicate that secondary markets have the key elements needed for CPMS success, and that policy tools designed to facilitate transactions in secondary markets can be highly effective in reducing food waste.
AB - Wasting food is one of the rare problems that affects our ability to achieve economic goals in terms of food security, environmental sustainability, and farm-financial security. Most of the ideas proposed to this point involve either behavioral nudges or administrative regulations that are either too paternalistic or piecemeal to represent viable solutions. In this study, we investigate the potential for commercial peer-to-peer mutualization systems (CPMSs), or sharing-economy firms, to emerge as market platforms for the exchange of surplus food. If a system of CPMSs 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. We develop an empirical model of a CPMS operating as a platform in a two-sided market, and examine its viability using data from one of the first CPMS firms in the surplus-harvest industry, Imperfect Produce, Inc. Empirical estimates of a two-sided network-demand model show that user-demand rises in the number of growers shipping to the platform, and grower demand for distribution rises in the number of users. Our findings indicate that secondary markets have the key elements needed for CPMS success, and that policy tools designed to facilitate transactions in secondary markets can be highly effective in reducing food waste.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.foodpol.2018.01.008
DO - 10.1016/j.foodpol.2018.01.008
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85044633031
SN - 0306-9192
VL - 75
SP - 109
EP - 123
JO - Food Policy
JF - Food Policy
ER -