We examine a food retailer’s incentive to use a minimum quality standard as part of a quality-based price-discrimination strategy and show how price discrimination can result in a substantial level of retail food waste. Using data from a major US food retailer, we estimate a structural model of retail price discrimination and conduct a series of counter-factual experiments to demonstrate that observed retail prices are consistent with quality-based price discrimination in the retail market. Our findings indicate that quality standards on fresh produce can explain a substantial proportion (⁠|$7.5\%$|⁠) of food waste by retailers in the US.

中文翻译：

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零售价格歧视和食物浪费

我们研究了食品零售商使用最低质量标准作为基于质量的价格歧视策略的一部分的动机，并说明了价格歧视如何导致大量零售食品浪费。我们使用来自美国一家主要食品零售商的数据，估算了零售价格歧视的结构模型，并进行了一系列反事实实验，以证明观察到的零售价格与零售市场中基于质量的价格歧视相一致。我们的调查结果表明，新鲜农产品的质量标准可以解释美国零售商在食物垃圾中所占的比例很大（⁠| $ 7.5 \％$ |⁠）。