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This chapter presents the research rationale underpinning the book. It addresses the intertwining challenges of food security and surplus food management, discussing recent data and literature. It also presents how social innovation is conceptualized in the book as the theoretical framework to analyse partnerships between business and nonprofit organisations in managing food surplus. The methodology of the research is also detailed, along with the book structure.

The chapter analyses the food recovery, management and redistribution system from the viewpoint of food charities, and it presents a model to analyse the constraints faced by NPOs as well as the enablers which help them to manage surplus food more efficiently. The model is built combining the literature on both non-profit organisations and food recovery management with the empirical evidence from 37 cases of NPOs across four European countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain). For each dimension of the model, the cross-case analysis carried out here allowed identifying strenghts and weaknesses of the NPOs along the three stages of the food recovery process: collection, management and distribution.

This chapter presents the research rationale underpinning the book. It addresses the intertwining challenges of food security and surplus food management, discussing recent data and literature. It also presents how social innovation is conceptualized in the book as the theoretical framework to analyse partnerships between business and nonprofit organisations in managing food surplus. The methodology of the research is also detailed, along with the book structure.