ConclusionsThe most important finding in this study is that there are greatopportunities for reducing food waste by decreasing the storagetemperature in supermarket cheese, dairy, deli and meat depart-ments. Waste reduction increased with decreased temperature,with the maximum reduction (16–30%) for each department beingfound at the lowest storage temperature tested (2◦C). However,since lower storage temperature requires higher energy input, elec-tricity consumption increased for all departments with decreasedstorage temperature. It was largest for the dairy department, dueto the large volumes of dairy products in need of cooling.The net effect of this waste reduction measure was calculated bysubtracting the increased energy requirement from the decreasedcost of food waste. The highest cost efficiency was found for themeat department, where a reduction from 4◦C to 2◦C gave netsavings potential of 56 kSEK store−1y−1, corresponding to 12 MgCO2e store−1y−1. In the deli department, a temperature reductionfrom 8◦C to 5–2◦C gave net savings of 5–7 kSEK store−1y−1, cor-responding to 0.4–0.8 Mg CO2e store−1y−1. In the cheese and dairydepartments the cost of reducing storage temperature exceededthe potential savings by so much that if this measure wereintroduced in all four departments, it could result in a net cost.A general reduction in storage temperature would efficientlyreduce food waste, but it could lead to a large net cost. Makingthe temperature reduction measure selective for products with lowturnover and high relative waste would give the highest cost effi-ciency, although the largest waste reduction potential in terms ofmass would be obtained for products with high turnover.