Enabling Sustainable Consumption: Development of an Inventory Management Tool for Food Recovery

The food supply chain presents numerous challenges from farm to fork resulting in over one third of all food produced going to waste. These challenges uniquely affect the level of food insecurity among regional populations. Food lost in the production and manufacturing stages of the supply chain are most influential in developing nations. Meanwhile the retail and consumer stages substantially affect food wasted in developed nations. The project described in this paper applies a systems-based approach to evaluate the inventory management needs for a charitable food recovery organization (FRO) and develop a tool for more effective management of recovered food. The capabilities to be incorporated in the tool are identified through an in-depth literature review and a current state assessment of the FRO’s system. Influential relationships and feedback loops are examined to provide a central view of inventory assets, how they are acquired and dispersed. The easy-to-use tool is then developed to interface with existing data collection mechanisms at the FRO. The paper will detail the research involved and necessary steps taken to provide accurate sustainability and inventory reporting for the FRO for more effective food recovery. Limitations of the tool and potential improvement opportunities will also be discussed.