Engaging with food waste while avoiding stigma: How a consultancy shields hospitality organizations from dirty work associations

Calls for food waste reduction and prevention are intensifying, including in the hospitality sector, where waste occurs in kitchens and during food service. Hospitality organisations are encouraged to adopt an engaged approach, committing to responsible food handling with a focus on waste reduction. However, drawing on the “dirty work” literature, which refers to activities perceived as tainted, we expect that an engaged approach may trigger stigmatising perceptions and negative judgments, hindering organisations’ responsible engagement with food waste. Yet, the dirty work literature also highlights the role of “shields” that mitigate the effects of stigma. Based on a qualitative study in Switzerland, we explore the dirty work associations that hospitality organisations face when adopting an engaged approach to food waste and how they can shield themselves from stigmatising judgments. Our study reveals that hospitality organisations face two main negative judgments. Guests may perceive reused food as having low economic value, leading to expectations of low prices, or associate it with low quality and safety risks. Both associations are disadvantageous, and our data show that a small, ideologically motivated consultancy can play a key role in providing protection. This consultancy acts as an intermediary, operating as a status shield while developing a necessity shield by emphasising the economic and ecological value of engaging with food waste. These shields protect hospitality organisations from dirty work associations, enabling their effective engagement with food waste. Our findings contribute to the food waste literature and advance the dirty work literature by highlighting the importance of inter-organisational dynamics in combating food waste and shielding against dirty work associations.