Abstract
Alhonnoro, Leipämaa-Leskinen, and Syrjälä analyse distributed agency in food waste, focusing on how non-human actors participate in production and/or reduction of food waste in retailing. Adopting the Actor-Network Theory, they follow how bread may—or may not—turn to waste. They zoom in on the interactions of three particular sets of non-human actors—bread and its package, natural-temporal actors, and techno-material actors—with other human and non-human actors in the food waste network. The chapter outlines practical implications and suggestions for food waste reduction by showing how food waste in retailing is not merely a human-led process that can be solved at the aggregate level, but a dispersed and complex issue needing analysis of the operational reality in the store environment.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Alhonnoro, L., & Norrgrann, A. (2018). Gluttony: No taste without the waste? Gluttony in bakery product retailing. In H. Syrjälä & H. Leipämaa-Leskinen (Eds.), Seven deadly sins in consumption (pp. 78–95). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Arnould, E. J., & Wallendorf, M. (1994). Market-oriented ethnography: Interpretation building and marketing strategy formulation. Journal of Marketing Research, 31(4), 484–504.
Askegaard, S., & Linnet, J. T. (2011). Towards an epistemology of consumer culture theory: Phenomenology and the context of context. Marketing Theory, 11(4), 381–404.
Bajde, D. (2013). Consumer culture theory (re)visits actor-network theory: Flattening consumption studies. Marketing Theory, 13(2), 227–242.
Bettany, S. (2016). A commentary: Where (and what) is the critical in consumer-oriented actor-network theory? In R. Canniford & D. Bajde (Eds.), Assembling consumption: Researching actors, networks and markets (pp. 187–197). Abingdon: Routledge.
Bettany, S., & Kerrane, B. (2011). The (post-human) consumer, the (post-avian) chicken and the (post-object) Eglu: Towards a material-semiotics of anti-consumption. European Journal of Marketing, 45(11/12), 1746–1756.
Borgerson, J. (2013). The flickering consumer: New materialities and consumer research. In R. Belk, L. Price, & L. Peñaloza (Eds.), Consumer culture theory: Research in consumer behavior (Vol. 15, pp. 125–144). Bingley: Emerald.
Brancoli, P., Rousta, K., & Bolton, K. (2017). Life cycle assessment of supermarket food waste. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 118, 39–46.
Brembeck, H. (2008). Inscribing Nordic childhoods at McDonalds. In M. Gutman & N. de Coninck-Smith (Eds.), Designing modern childhoods: History, space, and the material culture of childhood (pp. 269–281). New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Canniford, R., & Bajde, D. (Eds.). (2016). Assembling consumption: Researching actors, networks and markets. Abingdon: Routledge.
Canniford, R., Riach, K., & Hill, T. (2018). Nosenography: How smell constitutes meaning, identity and temporal experience in spatial assemblages. Marketing Theory, 18(2), 234–248.
Cicatiello, C., Franco, S., Pancino, B., Blasi, E., & Falasconi, L. (2017). The dark side of retail food waste: Evidences from in-store data. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 125, 273–281.
Cochoy, F. (2008). Calculation, qualculation, calqulation: Shopping cart arithmetic, equipped cognition and the clustered consumer. Marketing Theory, 8(1), 15–44.
Evans, D. (2011). Blaming the consumer—Once again: The social and material contexts of everyday food waste practices in some English households. Critical Public Health, 21(4), 429–440.
Evans, D. (2012). Beyond the throwaway society: Ordinary domestic practice and a sociological approach to household food waste. Sociology, 46(1), 41–56.
Evans, D. (2018). Rethinking material cultures of sustainability: Commodity consumption, cultural biographies and following the thing. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 43(1), 110–121.
Evans, D., Campbell, H., & Murcott, A. (2013). A brief pre-history of food waste and the social sciences. The Sociological Review, 60(S2), 5–26.
FAO. (2011). Global food losses and food wastes: Extent, causes and prevention. Rome, Italy: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. http://www.fao.org/3/a-i2697e.pdf. Accessed on 6.3.2019.
Filimonau, V., & Gherbin, A. (2017). An exploratory study of food waste management practices in the UK grocery retail sector. Journal of Cleaner Production, 167, 1184–1194.
FGT. (2017). The duties of grocery trade. Finnish Grocery Trade. www.pty.fi/front-page/finnish-grocery-trade/the-duties-of-grocery-trade/. Accessed on 20.8.2017.
Giuseppe, A., Mario, E., & Cinzia, M. (2014). Economic benefits from food recovery at the retail stage: An application to Italian food chains. Waste Management, 34(7), 1101–1350.
Gollnhofer, J. F., & Schouten, J. W. (2017). Complementing the dominant social paradigm with sustainability. Journal of Macromarketing, 37(2), 143–152.
Gruber, V., Holweg, C., & Teller, C. (2016). What a waste! Exploring the human reality of food waste from the store manager’s perspective. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 35(1), 3–25.
Haraway, D. (2003). The companion species manifesto: Dogs, people & significant otherness. Chicago, IL: Prickly Paradigm Press.
Hill, T., Canniford, R., & Mol, J. (2014). Non-representational marketing theory. Marketing Theory, 14(4), 377–394.
Katajajuuri, J., Silvennoinen, K., Hartikainen, H., Heikkilä, L., & Reinikainen, A. (2014). Food waste in the Finnish food chain. Journal of Cleaner Production, 73, 322–329.
Latour, B. (1987). Science in action: How to follow scientists and engineers through society. Cambridge, MA and London, UK: Harvard University Press.
Latour, B. (1996). On actor-network theory: A few clarifications plus more than a few complications. Soziale Welt, 47, 369–381.
Latour, B. (1999a). On recalling ANT. Sociological Review, 47(S1), 15–25.
Latour, B. (1999b). Pandora’s hope: Essays on the reality of science studies. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor-network theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lugosi, P., & Quinton, S. (2018). More-than-human netnography. Journal of Marketing Management, 34(3–4), 287–313.
Mattila, M., Mesiranta, N., Närvänen, E., Koskinen, O., & Sutinen, U.-M. (2018). Dances with potential food waste: Organising temporality in food waste reduction practices. Time & Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/0961463X18784123.
Mena, C., Adenso-Diaz, B., & Yurtc, O. (2011). The causes of food waste in the supplier–retailer interface: Evidences from the UK and Spain. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 55, 648–658.
Miller, D. (2010). Stuff. Cambridge: Polity.
Otnes, C. C., Ruth, J. A., & Crosby, E. M. (2014). Product-agency benefits: Consumer perspectives and strategic implications. European Journal of Marketing, 48(5/6), 878–898.
Parfitt, J., Barthel, M., & Macnaughton, S. (2010). Food waste within food supply chains: Quantification and potential for change to 2050. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 365(1554), 3065–3081.
Silvennoinen, K., Koivupuro, H.-K., Katajajuuri, J.-M., Jalkanen, L., & Reinikainen, A. (2012). Ruokahävikki suomalaisessa ruokaketjussa (MTT Raportti 41). Tampere: Tampereen Yliopistopaino Oy.
Stenmarck, Å., Hanssen, O. J., Silvennoinen, K., Katajajuuri, J.-M., & Werge, M. (2011). Initiatives on prevention of food waste in the retail and wholesale trades. TemaNord, 2011, 548.
Syrjälä, H., Jaskari, M., & Leipämaa-Leskinen, H. (2016). Object agency of a living/non-living entity: The case of horse/horsemeat. In D. Rinallo, N. Özçağlar-Toulouse, & R. Belk (Eds.), Consumer culture theory: Research in consumer behavior (Vol. 18, pp. 65–92). Bingley: Emerald.
Syrjälä, H., & Norrgrann, A. (2019, in press). “When your dog matches your decor”. Object agency of living and non-living entities in home assemblage. In D. Bajde, D. Kjedgaard, & R. Belk (Eds.), Consumer culture theory: Research in consumer behavior (Vol. 20, pp. 39–54). Bingley: Emerald.
Teller, C., Holweg, C., Reiner, G., & Kotzab, H. (2018). Retail store operations and food waste. Journal of Cleaner Production, 185, 981–997.
Theotokis, A., Pramatari, K., & Tsiros, M. (2012). Effects of expiration date-based pricing on brand image perceptions. Journal of Retailing, 88(1), 72–87.
Waitt, G., & Phillips, C. (2016). Food waste and domestic refrigeration: A visceral and material approach. Social and Cultural Geography, 17(3), 359–379.
Walther, L., & Schouten, J. W. (2016). Next stop, Pleasure Town: Identity transformation and women’s erotic consumption. Journal of Business Research, 69(1), 273–283.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Alhonnoro, L., Leipämaa-Leskinen, H., Syrjälä, H. (2020). Distributed Agency in Food Waste—A Focus on Non-human Actors in Retail Setting. In: Närvänen, E., Mesiranta, N., Mattila, M., Heikkinen, A. (eds) Food Waste Management. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20561-4_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20561-4_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-20560-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-20561-4
eBook Packages: Business and ManagementBusiness and Management (R0)