Exploring consumer perception of food waste management practices in the quick-service restaurant industry of South Africa: A case of Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants..

Abstract

Food insecurity is not only a global issue but is an ominous concern for South Africa. With almost twelve million South Africans suffering from hunger daily (Oelofse, et al., 2018), it is borderline criminal that ten million tons of food goes to waste in South Africa each year (Caxton Magazines, 2017). This raises serious ethical considerations as the food wasted could be used to feed the hungry. With an ever-growing population this issue will continue to expand and therefore finding more efficient ways cultivate, process and present food to consumers has become a serious topic of discussion. To lessen the degree of food insecurity in the country, companies involved in the food supply chain will have to adopt new approaches to make consumers aware of the issues surrounding food waste to promote behavioural change (Marx-Pienaar, et al., 2020). Unfortunately, limited imperial research has been done on the degree of food waste in a South African context and this impedes the required responsive action. Furthermore, the efforts of companies will be ultimately unsuccessful if the consumers of the company’s products do not respond positively to the consumer education regarding the topic of food waste. An upsurge in awareness of the effect the knowledge-ignorance paradox (Ferreira , et al., 2016: 14) is posing also raises more questions as to how to approach food waste education and how consumers will react. Marketing initiatives have progressed in recent years to be more human-centric (Kotler & Kartajaya, 2007) as brands are realising consumers have deeper desires which need to be met to ensure brand loyalty and meaningfulness. Fierce competition has resulted in an oversupply of basic consumer requirements and brands must now provide more social and environmentally focussed services as part of their offerings to differentiate themselves. Given the above, this study was comprehended to improve the current understanding of consumers attitudes towards food waste and specifically the consumers perception of the Kentucky Fried Chicken brand whilst knowing or not knowing what efforts the brand deploys with regards to food waste management throughout its supply chain. Therefore, the primary research question of this study was derived as: Would knowing what KFC is doing with regards to food waste management practices improve the meaningfulness of the brand from the perspective of the consumer?