Improving food products sales and processing in retail chains economic efficiency

Reduction and recycling of food with an expiring shelf life in retail is a matter of not only rational use of resources, but also the formation of environmental awareness of consumers. Domestic retailers in their development programs implement solutions to minimize food waste through discounts, food sharing and other measures in order to prevent the disposal of goods. In this article the authors focus on the recycling of vegetables and fruit in retail before the expiration date, since this category of goods leads in the share of waste formation in retail. The purpose of the study is to determine the economic efficiency of recycling vegetables and fruit in retail depending on the product subcat egory and test hypotheses based on the results obtained. The data of foreign studies on the recycling of food waste in retail are summarized. The authors conducted an analysis of the measures used by federal food retailers in Russia to reduce and recycle products with an expiring shelf life. The article presents the results of an experiment that examines the processing of goods in the "Vegetables and Fruits" category based on data from 55 stores in a regional retail chain for 2019–2022. The processing structure by product subcategories was studied in terms of turnover and marginality. The results obtained made it possible to test hypotheses about the economic efficiency of processing vegetables and fruit in retail that had not previously been considered in other studies. The authors tested measures for processing vegetables and fruit aimed at reducing the share of write-offs in the turnover of a food retailer. The study made it possible to identify priority subcategories of vegetables and fruit for processing in terms of economic efficiency.