Examining effective means to reduce food waste behaviour in buffet restaurants

Abstract

“All you can eat” buffet restaurants are one of the most popular franchise restaurant styles in Asia. They offer the “treat” of customer-friendly unlimited food intake at the expense of environmentally harmful plate waste at the end of the meal. When the right “tricks” are employed, consumers’ wasteful, anti-environmental behaviours can be changed, with significant positive effects on food waste volume and restaurant earnings. A field experiment was conducted for this study. First, in Study 1, a test of both moral and financial interventions under two serving conditions was conducted for 360 subjects to find the most effective combination of interventions and serving styles in mitigating food waste volume. Second, building upon the findings from Study 1, a random sample of 45 female and 45 male subjects were examined to test the differential effects of consumer characteristics (gender, age, occupation, and dining purpose) on food waste behaviour. The results show that while management interventions were equally effective regardless of gender, age, and occupation, consumers dining for the purpose of sociability (as compared to dining simply for sustenance) were less affected by either moral or financial interventions. The study of food waste mitigation also provides insights into effective management interventions for environmentally friendly consumer behaviours in a wide range of hospitality industries.