No Issues identified from consumer tweets

Mitigation of issues

1 Bad flavour and unpleasant smell

Periodic maintenance of packaging machines at abattoir and processor (Barbosa-Pereira et al., 2014), efficient cold chain management (Kim et al., 2012), appropriate training of workforce in logistics and throughout the supply chain so that mishandling of beef products is avoided (Mishra and Singh, 2016).

2 Extra fat Raising of cattle as per the weight and conformation specifications of retailer (Borgogno et al., 2016) and appropriate trimming of primals at abattoir and processor (Mena et al., 2014).

3 Discoloration of beef products

Raising cattle on fresh grass at beef farms and maintaining efficient cold chain management throughout the supply chain (Mishra and Singh, 2016).

4 Hard texture Appropriate maturation of carcass after slaughtering (Singh et al., 2017).

5 Presence of foreign body Following renowned food safety process management techniques like GMP, HACCP (Goodwin, 2014). Appropriate safety checks such as physical inspection, metal detection, random sampling (Bolton et al., 2001). Periodic maintenance of machines at abattoir and processor (Singh et al., 2017).

In the next section, managerial implications of proposed framework have been described in detail.

3.6 Managerial Implications

The finding of this study will assist the beef retailers to develop a consumer centric supply chain. During the analysis, it was found that sometimes, consumers were unhappy because of high price of steak products, lack of local meat, bad smell, presence of bone fragments, lack of tenderness, cooking time and overall quality. In a study, Wrap (2008) estimated that 161,000 tonnes of meat waste occurred because of customer dissatisfaction. The majority of food waste is because of discolouration, bad flavour, smell, packaging issues, and presence of foreign body. Discolouration can be solved by using new packaging technologies and by utilising natural antioxidants in diet of cattle. If the cattle consume

87 fresh grass before slaughtering, it can help to increase the Vitamin E in the meat and have a huge impact on delaying the oxidation of colour and lipids. The issues related to bad smell and flavour can be caused due to temperature abuse of beef products. The efficient cold chain management throughout the supply chain, raising awareness and proper coordination among different stakeholders can assist retailers to overcome this issue. The packaging of beef products can be affected by mishandling during the product flow in the supply chain or by following inefficient packaging techniques by abattoir and processor, which can also lead to presence of foreign body within beef products. Inefficient packaging affects the quality, colour, taste and smell. Periodic maintenance of packaging machines and using more advanced packaging techniques like Modified Atmosphere Packaging and Vacuum Skin Packaging will assist retailers in addressing above mentioned issues. The high price of beef products can be mitigated by improving the vertical coordination within the beef supply chain. The lack of coordination in the supply chain leads to waste, which results in high price of beef products. Therefore, a strategic planning and its implementation can assist the food retailers to reduce price of their beef products more efficiently than their rivals.

The major issues revealed by customer’s tweets helps to identify their root causes in supply chain. It can be at the premises of a stakeholder, at the interface of two stakeholders or at multiple places within the supply chain. The proposed framework in this study will help the policy makers of the retailer to prioritize the mitigation of various issues as per their impact on food waste. Normally, all the stakeholders in a beef supply chain work independently. If a common issue is identified in the whole supply chain leading to the waste in the customer end. Then, the retailer can assist all the stakeholders to improve their coordination (in terms of information sharing) and collectively address this issue. The improved coordination among stakeholders will not just help in waste minimisation but assist in improved product flow, efficiency and sustainability of the supply chain. These aspects would be beneficial for both the retailer firms and the society.

3.7 Conclusion

Rising population is a cause of concern globally as there are limited resources (land, water, etc.) to produce food for them. Millions of people are dying worldwide because of being deprived from food. These complications cannot be mitigated alone by development of

88 innovative technologies to extract more harvest from the limited natural resources. Waste minimisation must be made a priority throughout the food supply chain including their consumption at consumer’s end. Food waste financially affects all the stakeholders of food supply chain viz. farmers, food processors, wholesalers, retailers, and consumers. Majority of waste is being generated at consumer end. Often, consumers are not happy with the food products and discard them. Apart from food waste, retailers are losing their customers because of their dissatisfaction. Although, major retailers have made a provision for the customers to make a complaint in the store, still, customers are not doing so. They are using social media like Twitter to express their disappointment. Consumers usually tag the name of the retailer while making their complaints on social media, which is affecting the reputation of the retailers. There is plenty of useful information available on social media like Twitter, which can be used by food retailers for developing their waste minimisation strategy. In this study, Twitter data has been used to investigate the consumer sentiments. More than one million tweets related to beef products has been collected using different keywords. Sentiment mining based on SVM and HCA with multiscale bootstrap sampling techniques were proposed to investigate positive and negative sentiments of the consumers; as well as, to identify their issues/concerns about the food products. The collected tweets have been analysed to identify the main issues affecting consumer satisfaction. The root causes of these identified issues have been linked to their root causes in different segments of supply chain. During the analysis of the tweets collected, it was found that the main concern related to beef products among consumers were colour, food safety, smell, flavour and presence of foreign particles in beef products. These issues generate huge disappointment among consumers. There were lots of tweets related to positive sentiments where consumers had discovered and shared their experience about promotions, deals and a particular combination of food and drinks with beef products. Based on these findings, a set of recommendations have been prescribed for waste minimisation and to develop consumer centric supply chain.

The proposed framework assisted in addressing the waste occurring at the consumer end of the beef supply chain by data mining from social media. However, waste is being generated at the premises of other stakeholders (farmers, abattoir, processor and retailer) as well. The next chapter proposes a mechanism to mitigate the waste generated at these segments. The data collection is being done by interviews of different stakeholders which

89 are analyzed by Current Reality Tree method to recommend good practices for waste minimization in beef supply chain.

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CHAPTER 4