Abstract:
Every year on the 28th of May, the issue of world hunger is zoomed in on, as this day marks World Hunger Day. It is no secret that poverty and hunger exist more commonly in vulnerable communities, however, it might become very disturbing when we consider the reality that over 820 million people in the world do not have enough food to eat every day (World hungerday.org, 2020). Food waste is defined by the UN Environment (2020) as “food that completes the food supply chain up to a final product of good quality and fit for consumption but still doesn’t get consumed because it gets discarded of, whether or not it is left to spoil or expire.” The WWF-SA ‘Food loss and waste: facts and futures’ report in 2017, found that 20% of food is wasted during distribution and retail. Therefore, each retail and distribution brand has a great responsibility to eradicate their food wastage contribution. In the context of brand building management, this leads us to the notion of meaningful brands and their connection to this crisis of food waste. We can define a meaningful brand according to its effect on our personal and collective well-being, also its functional benefits (Cicireanu, 2020).
Therefore, a meaningful brand’s content should take on the role of educating, informing, entertaining, inspiring, rewarding, and helping as well as still be a great driver of personal well-being and thus well-being itself (Cicireanu, 2020).
This study is focused on the crisis relating directly to the issues highlighted above, namely the wastage of food in the South African context and how a meaningful brand like Spar, can either contribute towards helping to eradicate this problem or simply add to the crisis.
