Understanding Food Waste in Bulk in Incheon: Based on Naver Blog Big Data

Abstract

Purpose: This study aims to provide insight into the contemporary food waste issue for the better management of food waste in large quantities in Incheon, one specific region in Korea, based on the analysis of the Naver Blog corpus, employing analysis techniques including text mining and LDA topic modeling.
 Design/methodology/approach: In order to achieve the aforementioned objectives, the current study has employed the R program for the analysis (e.g., TF, tf-idf, correlation, and LDA) of 868 Naver Blog posts which included information about food waste, and/or garbage produced in bulk by foodservice operators in the context of Incheon.
 Findings: The frequently addressed keywords in the dataset include food, waste, garbage, processor, workplace, food waste dewaterer, microorganism, pulverizer, plastic, compressor, restaurant, sink, cafeteria, and bean sprouts. The correlation analysis demonstrated that waste is largely generated by food material, and food material is closely related to specific types of private companies (e.g., cafeterias) and public places (e.g., military bases, prisons, hospi-tals). The LDA identified three topics: the implications for food waste produced by the workplace, recent equipment and technologies used for food waste processing, and effect of waste on the environment and call for remedies.
 Research limitations/implications: While this study has shed light on contemporary issues in relation to food waste in Incheon, it is suggested that the involved parties in the waste management industry pay more attention to the development of effective waste management strategies by hospitality operators in a specific region.
 Originality/value: This study responds to a lack of understanding underpinning foodservice operators who produce a large quantity of food waste in Incheon, albeit much attention has been paid to some recent research on food waste.