Food-sharing in the distributed use economy

Abstract

Sustainable development values and concepts of responsible consumption, sharing, waste-free production and recycling are becoming more and more popular among organisations and consumers. Though food-sharing has not yet become as popular as car-sharing, it aims to solve important social food policy problems of decreasing food waste and redistributing food to support those in need. Basing on research literature, and publications in business media the paper presents the results of content analysis of materials from food-sharing platforms and websites in Russia. Authors compare foreign best practices, identify the main food-sharing models: exchange with monetary compensation, gratuitous transfer (charity), and food-sharing within the neighbouring community Problems and unresolved food-sharing issues are explained, such as lack of information about available options of food-sharing, low trust of consumers to the quality of food being shared and perception of using charitable food stock as something shameful. The paper maps possible directions for the development of food-sharing considering the existing international experience.