The Role of Digital Platform in Waste Recovery in the Food Supply Chain

Abstract

Food waste is generally seen as highly unethical. Recycling food waste requires establishing information-sharing channels in the food supply chain. However, the lack of relationship between suppliers and potential demanders hinders the delivery of waste products, conceptualized as "structural holes" in social network research. The food recovery digital platform in the food supply chain acts as a market intermediary to bridge the communication at the two ends of the structural holes, fulfilling the function of "brokers", which has been proven in the transaction cost theory to reduce the transaction costs and improve the performance of the supply chain. However, related research on digital platforms and supply chains ignores this new type of brokerage. This research combines network research, transaction cost research, and supply chain research and explores the role of food recovery platforms in food waste problems in the food supply chain.