A consumer behavioural approach to food waste

Abstract

Purpose Food waste occurs in every stage of the supply chain, but the value-added lost to waste is the highest when consumers waste food. The purpose of this paper is to understand the food waste behaviour of consumers to support policies for minimising food waste. Design/methodology/approach Using the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) as a theoretical lens, the authors design a questionnaire that incorporates contextual factors to explain food waste behaviour. The authors test two models: base (four constructs of TPB) and extended (four constructs of TPB plus six contextual factors). The authors build partial least squares structural equation models to test the hypotheses. Findings The data confirm significant relationships between food waste and contextual factors such as motives, financial attitudes, planning routines, food surplus, social relationships and Ramadan. Research limitations/implications The data comes from an agriculturally resource-constrained country: Qatar. Practical implications Food waste originating from various causes means more food should flow through the supply chains to reach consumers’ homes. Contextual factors identified in this work increase the explanatory power of the base model by 75 per cent. Social implications Changing eating habits during certain periods of the year and food surplus have a strong impact on food waste behaviour. Originality/value A country is considered to be food secure if it can provide its citizens with stable access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food. The findings and conclusions inform and impact upon the development of food waste and food security policies.

Food Waste in the Countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council: A Systematic Review

“…Kuwait (2) Aljamal and Bagnied [120]; Natour [125] Oman (1) Baawain et al [107] Qatar 8Abdelaal et al [94]; Aktas et al [98]; Bennbaia et al [100]; Bennbaia et al [99]; Elkhalifa et al [95]; Irani et al [101]; Al-Ali Mustafa [108]; Seed [116] Saudi Arabia 16Alhajhoj [106]; Al-Othman and Hewedy [123]; Alruqai [121]; Al-Shoshan [124]; Al-Zahrani and Baig [117]; Amara et al [118];…”

“…Following their investigation on the food waste behavior of consumers in Qatar, Aktas et al [98] confirm that there are "significant relationships between food waste and contextual factors such as motives, financial attitudes, planning routines, food surplus, social relationships and Ramadan" (p. 658). Subsidies also contribute to wastage in general (e.g., water, energy) and food wastage in particular in the GCC countries [117,129].…”

“…Indeed, Baig et al [61] suggest that food is mainly wasted at the consumer level in Saudi Arabia; "food is wasted at restaurants, caterers, cafeterias and, especially, by households such that food waste is the single-largest component of the landfills" (p. 1743). Moreover, even at the consumption level, studies on behavioral and attitudinal aspects relating to food wastage are lacking; the only exception is Aktas et al [98] who use TPB (theory of planned behavior) to investigate food waste behavior of Qatari consumers. The selected papers deal with food waste at consumption in different settings such as food outlets of university campuses [94,123], hospitals [109,124], hotels [113,114], as well as households [99,100,117,120,122].…”

Research on Food Behavior in Romania from the Perspective of Supporting Healthy Eating Habits

“…Moreover, healthy eating promoted the tendency to reduce waste, a positive consequence being the decrease of food waste [103]. It is worth noting that the reduction of food waste in the households is one of the sustainable diet rules.…”

“…These figures lead many consumers to adopt healthier diets, which contributes to increasing social sustainability by reducing the expenditures needed to treat these chronic diseases, fact emphasized by the research of Dee et al [99]. Of course, in this way consumers also show an increasing interest for the sustainability of the environment, contributing both to the decrease of the effect of the climatic changes generated by the pressure exerted by the food production on the environment as Poli [10] and Grunert [101] reveal, and the decrease of the amount of household waste as the findings of FUSION project [105] and is stressed in the study of Aktas et al [103].…”