Introduction

SWOT is an acronym standing for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. By doing a SWOT analysis, food donors and charity organizations cannot just assess their current status quo but can develop future strategies for their business success. With this tool, charity organizations and food-donating companies can easily and effectively identify factors that are holding them back, and at the same time, it enables them to see clearly the opportunities they can exploit. Once the analysis is done, and the external and internal factors affecting the food donation business model have been identified, it will be easy to make the right decisions and develop appropriate strategies for enhancing the efficiency of activities related to food rescuing.

SWOT Analysis for food donators and charity organisations

With the help of this strategic planning tool, food donors (restaurants, hotels, cafés, catering companies and supermarkets) can effectively assess their performance, the competition, the risks and the potential of their businesses related to the topic of food rescue and surplus food reduction.

The tool is equally applicable to charity organizations on the other side of the food donation chain. They can use the SWOT analysis to gain a deeper understanding of their external environment, their strengths and weaknesses, and also the opportunities arising from food rescuing and from their charity work.

Both for the food donator companies and the charity organizations involved in the food rescue chain, the SWOT analysis is useful, as it:

• gives them a clear understanding of their own strengths and weaknesses;
• helps them with an overall analysis of their own external and internal factors, that will allow them to realign their companies/organizations and make optimal decisions, thus achieve better results;
• helps them mitigate the risks and use their resources in the best possible way;
• helps them develop competitive advantage over their competitors;
• supports the development of appropriate strategies – aimed towards specific goals of the organization, such as implementing the food rescue chain within their organizations in the most effective ways.

When conducting a SWOT analysis, it is highly recommended to involve as many departments as possible, since different people might come up with different ideas. This contributes to a more complex picture, allowing for identifying thus far not noticed opportunities. So diverse groups or voices within the organisation can make the SWOT far more realistic and useful. Having a broad set of perspectives is also more likely to result in more value-adding contributions.

Step-by-step instructions

Assessment of strengths and weaknesses (internal factors)

Strengths and weaknesses are those internal factors that a company or organisation can have influence on, these are the factors that are within the control of the company/organisation.

Strengths

In the first step of the SWOT analysis, food donating companies/ charity organisations should list their strengths. When listing strengths, the following things may be taken into consideration: the things that the organisation does outstandingly well, the high quality of products, highly qualified workforce, unique selling proposition, financial resources, etc.

When a Ho.Re.Ca company or charity organisation is working on identifying its strengths, it is worth raising the following questions:

• What are we particularly good at when it comes to food rescuing/delivering food to those in need?
• In what ways are we better than others concerning food rescuing/food delivering to those in need?
• What are the specific knowledge/skills areas that we possess related to the food rescue chain?
• What are the assets or resources that we do possess and our competitors don’t?
• What are the things our team values the most about food rescuing/delivering food to needy people?
• etc.

Weaknesses

The second step is to list the weaknesses. When identifying the weaknesses, food donating companies / charity organisations should think of anything that is preventing them to manage the food rescue chain more effectively of efficiently. These can be: their internal business procedures, human and time resources, their position compared to their competitors’ position, shortcomings in expertise and know-how, limited financial resources, etc.

When a Ho.Re.Ca company or charity organization aims at identifying its weaknesses, the following questions might be very useful:

• Which are those internal processes or structures that could be improved so as to increase our efficiency when it comes to food rescue/delivering surplus food as charity?
• What are the things other charities/restaurants/cafes/hotels/supermarkets are doing better than us when it comes to food rescuing/delivering of surplus food to those in need?
• Are there any knowledge or skill areas in which our team is not adequately trained?
• Are there any resources that our company/organisation does not possess but would be needed for a more efficient food rescuing activity?
• etc.

Once the strengths and weaknesses are listed, they should be ranked based on their importance or priority. When the ranking is ready, the first 5 strengths and the first 5 weaknesses should be inserted into the SWOT table. Working with more strengths and weaknesses might not be that efficient, so it is perfectly optimal to work with 5-5 aspects from each category.

Assessment of opportunities and threats (external factors)

As mentioned above, the opportunities and threats are factors coming from the external environment, thus they cannot be influenced by the organisation itself. What the charity organisation/Ho.Re.Ca. company can do, is to react in an appropriate way to these uncontrollable developments of the environment.

The external factors can be perceived either as threats or opportunities, depending on the exact situation. For example: a political circumstance can be making new funds available for businesses for reducing food waste – this is an opportunity. On the other hand, increasing taxes is also a political circumstance, which is a threat/risk for the company.

Opportunities

Opportunities are factors that are external to the company or organisation that might arise from for example the market a company/organisation is serving, or from the technology it is using. One should look for opportunities in a conscious manner, not neglecting the following aspects: sociocultural changes in the attitude of the target groups, market- and other trends, legal and political circumstances, etc.

So when trying to identify opportunities, Ho.Re.Ca companies/charities that wish to take active part in the food rescue chain should focus on questions such as the following:

• What legal or political developments/regulations are offering advantages to those involved in the food rescue chain and how can we exploit them for our benefit?
• How can we take advantage of our target groups’ increased interest in reducing food waste?
• What trends can we examine in connection with food rescue and how can we turn them to our advantage?
• What partners should we identify to build useful synergies with alongside the food rescue chain?
• Are there any external funding opportunities or other incentives, which can support our food rescuing ambitions and activities?
• How can we turn our strengths into opportunities?
• etc.

Threats

Once the opportunities have been identified, the very same way, threats should be listed. Threats, just like opportunities, are external factors, which the company/organisation cannot have influence on. This can be anything that is negatively affecting our food rescue/surplus food delivery activities from the outside, such as: inflation, new competitors, changes in the price dynamics, changes in legislations, etc.

For Ho.Re.Ca companies/charity organisations making their SWOT analysis focusing on the food rescue chain, the following questions might be very useful to observe:

• What legal laws or regulations can have negative impact on our food rescue activities?
• What external factors can jeopardize our food rescuing goals/surplus food delivering goals?
• What are the market- or other trends that might be a risk for our food rescuing activities?
• Are there changing quality standards negatively affecting your activities related to food rescuing/surplus food delivering?
• etc.

Similarly as in case of strengths and weaknesses, when it comes to threats and opportunities, also 5-5 should be selected from each category, ranked based on their importance and priority, and then written into the respective grid of the SWOT table.

Practical Examples – “Food for thought”

Hereby, we are presenting two scenarios of SWOT analysis, the first one offering food for thought for Ho.Re.Ca. companies/supermarkets when doing their SWOT analysis, whereas the second example does the same, but from the perspective of a charity organisation. Although the two examples are made for illustrating possible SWOT scenarios, both examples are heavily relying on the answers gathered during the conduction of the Europe-wide Assessment Analysis and through the Environmental and/or Food Security Experts’ Interviews Analysis within the framework of our ReS-Food project.

Example 1 – Food donators’ potential external and internal factors to keep in mind and observe

As a first example, we will look at a Ho.Re.Ca. company/organisation that aims to eliminate food waste, start donating surplus food and ensure food distribution. The listed strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities are aiming to present possible factors for each category – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the SWOT analysis.

Strengths (5)	Weaknesses (5)
commitment of the management to reduce food waste high motivation and support of the employees to join the food rescue chain ability to actively contribute to humanitarian goals staff experience and know-how excellent communication with existing target groups	lack of adequate storage space for surplus food extra administrative burden connected to food donation – need for more working hours no existing connections with charity organisations lack of time for transporting the surplus food unpredictable amount of surplus food
Opportunities (5)	Threats (Risks) (5)
tax deduction for donor companies eliminated/reduced costs of transporting surplus food (charities taking it away) behaviour change and awareness of the wider community new external funding opportunities for supporting the implementation of food rescue initiatives build new partnerships (volunteers, charities, transport companies, etc.)	changes in food safety regulations unexpected rise in the cost of transportation inflation and rising food costs unpredictable changes in the legal and economic environment lock-down for any reason, such as Covid or war.

Example 2 – Charity/Food recipient organisations’ potential external and internal factors to keep in mind and observe

As a second example, we are examining a charity company organisation.   The aim of the charity is to receive as much surplus food as possible and to distribute it to its target groups – people in need, big families with limited financial resources, meanwhile ensuring the highest possible quality of the donated food. The charity currently distributes all the donated food and feels that there is need for more food from the side of the target groups, thus it wants to address this need.

Strengths (5)	Weaknesses (5)
high motivation and enthusiasm of the employees to distribute food ability to act in a socially responsible way, helping those in need, contributing to humanitarian goals good and continuous connections with volunteers supporting the donation process good existing relationship with food donator companies staff skills, experience and know-how	no adequate conditions for storage and warehousing to assure the quality of the surplus food in case of bigger quantities law number of food donating companies with which there is an existing relationship (could be increased) weak social media presence limited financial resources for buying an additional vehicle for transporting the donated food not being able to collect the food at any time (e.g. in case of surplus food from restaurants, very often surplus food should be collected during the night, for which we have only limited human resources)
Opportunities (5)	Threats (Risks) (5)
behaviour change and awareness of the wider community contributing to humanitarian goals, create goodwill and social responsibility external funding possibilities for supporting the implementation of food donation initiatives growing demand (due to inflation and migration) building new partnerships (with companies from all the supply chain sectors that potentially generate food loss, transport companies, volunteers, etc.)	changes in food safety regulations unexpected rise in the cost of transportation inflation and rising food costs cause less consumption and less wasted food unpredictable changes in the legal and economic environment unpredictable amount of surplus food

From Analysis to Action – Strategy development

As shown above, the process of conducting the SWOT analysis is identical both for food donator and food recipient companies and organisations. Moreover, some of the external opportunities or the threats they are facing concerning the food rescue chain, are very similar, which is providing excellent strategic cooperation possibilities.

Once the analysis is done the next steps are related to strategy development. Strengths and weaknesses should be compared systematically, just as opportunities and threats. The next step is to determine how they relate to each other and how they can be turned into a set of actions with which the company will achieve their goals. Ho.Re.Ca. companies or food recipient organisations can take various strategy development approaches (Digital Transformation Tool: https://digital-transformation-tool.eu/training/mod/hvp/view.php?id=43):

• to match their strengths with the opportunities
• to use their strengths to fight against threats
• to eliminate their weaknesses to utilize opportunities
• to not let weaknesses become the target of threats

The result of the SWOT analysis will be the strategies for further actions that the food donator/ food recipient company/organisation have determined for each of the four strategic areas, in particular all those strategies that support the process of food rescuing/donation.

Since there will be many strategies identified, they should be prioritized based on their relevance, and the most promising ones should be chosen for implementation. When making the selection, it is important to try to quantify the potential benefit it brings to the organisation/company, and also pay due attention to the available resources needed for the implementation of these strategies. It is advisable to arrive to 3-5 strategies to implement in total. It is worth noting, that it is worthwhile to conduct the SWOT analysis from time to time again.

With the help of the SWOT analysis, food donator and food recipient companies will be able to easily create an adapted business model that is perfectly supporting their ambitions related to the food rescue chain.