A game theoretic approach for surplus food redistribution with Government intervention

Reducing food waste advocates efficient resource utilisation and could achieve a sequence of economic, social, and environmental benefits. One of the food waste reduction initiatives is to redistribute surplus food to food rescue organisations. This paper establishes a series of food rescue "games" with or without government interventions to model and to analyse the economic impacts resulting from the surplus food redistribution. The results show that voluntary cooperation between food donors and food rescue organisations could be achieved without government intervention if food waste management costs are greater than food donation costs. In the situation that food waste management costs are less than the food donation costs, proper government policy and financial support are needed to form the coalition and to maximise the coalition's payoff.