Finnish supermarket organizes happy hour on the shelves against food waste

    Finnish supermarket organizes happy hour on the shelves against food waste

    A Finnish supermarket chain applies advantageous offers to combat food waste, but is this really the solution?

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    A Finnish supermarket chain has introduced l’happy hour in their own points of sale to combat food waste.





    From 21,00 pm and until closing time, it is possible in over 900 S-Markets in Finland buy fresh food with a 60% discount.

    The initiative is part of a campaign against food waste that the supermarket chain has been running for two years.According to an FAO report about one third of the food ends up in the garbage, for a total of over 1 billion tons of wasted food. Producing food requires energy and resources that are completely lost if it is thrown in the trash reducing food waste would decrease greenhouse gas emissions.

    Thus the Finnish supermarket introduced theHappy hour on the shelves, an initiative that makes everyone happy: customers, because they can take advantage of advantageous offers, retailers who thus save on the costs of disposal of unsold items and the environment, relieved of waste.

    Ma Are initiatives like this really good for the environment? It depends, because the problem of food waste must however be tackled at different levels.

    Supermarkets can make a difference when the problem is the high cost of certain foods. In this case, reducing prices can help fight waste, since it allows to increase the sales of products that are normally inaccessible to some groups of consumers. If however these offers lead customers to purchase more than they are able to consume, then the question is by no means resolved: the food will simply end up in the garbage of consumers rather than in supermarkets.

    To combat food waste effectively, therefore, first of all one is needed increased consumer awareness, who must assess how much food they are actually able to consume e do not buy food compulsively enticed by offers or other marketing operations.



    Plan the meals of the week and make a shopping list before going to the supermarket e take advantage of discounts only for the products on the list, it can be of great help both to avoid waste and to really save money.

    I producers they should then adjust the offer on the basis of what it is really possible to sell, rather than placing excessive quantities of food on the market and having to resort to offers to dispose of the unsold items.


    Initiatives such asHappy hour offered by Finnish supermarkets they therefore make sense if the decrease in price allows access to products to groups of the population who cannot normally afford the purchase of certain foods and if these foods are actually consumed.


    Read also:

      • I don't throw: this is how Milan fights food waste by creating alliances between shops, schools and volunteers
      • The EU against food waste
      • North east zero waste: the commitment of 100 mayors against food waste

    Tatiana Maselli

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