Expiry Dates, Consumer Behavior, and Food Waste: How Would Italian Consumers React If There Were No Longer “Best Before” Labels?

Luca Secondi

doi:10.3390/su11236821

Abstract

Much research has been carried out on food losses and waste in the various stages of the food supply chain, consolidating the “fight” against food waste as one of the most important challenges in industrialized countries. Numerous different studies have focused on food waste at the household level, identifying both the multiple causes linked to this behavior and the factors that can drive towards the reduction of food waste. In this paper, a different approach was used, trying to analyze different individuals’ reactions to a concrete action consisting of removing “best before” labels from some food products, following the recent proposal by European Union to simplify date marking. How could any action in this area be implemented in every single country? Bearing in mind the general results of the cross-sectional official survey Flash Eurobarometer n. 425, the purpose of this study was to go deeper into the study of how consumers would behave if the expiry date were no longer available on a pack of spaghetti. The heterogeneity observed in the possible alternative reactions across European Union 28 countries, as well as by considering the importance played by the local context in which individuals reside led us to focus on a single country, and specifically on the Italian context, as an example of country in which citizens have a higher average level of knowledge about expiration dates than the global EU28 citizens, but where, at the same time, there is a more conservative behavior regarding using a product with no expiry date. The multinomial regression model—estimated using the generalized maximum entropy estimator—enabled us to identify different profiles and groups of individuals with which—as a suggestion to policy makers—it would be first necessary to intervene in order to standardize the level of knowledge on this specific topic. In this direction, territorial macro-areas proved to be strongly associated with the various reactions; the probability of consuming or throwing away was found to significantly differ across all the studied regional macro-areas, with a higher likelihood of throwing away the product with no best-before date in southern regions.

Highlights

In recent years, there has been increasing interest in household food waste (FW) from both academics and policy makers
Interventions by member states, regions, cities, and businesses along the food supply chains (FSCs) are essential for the prevention of FW and for dealing with the different situations that may arise across countries and regions, and awareness campaigns are required in order to change consumer behavior [5]
By adopting the generalized maximum entropy (GME) estimator introduced by Golan et al [15] and first introduced in a segmentation perspective for the FW context by Principato et al [16] and Secondi et al [17], we identified the factors distinguishing individuals according to their different behaviors towards this simulated action

Summary

Introduction

There has been increasing interest in household food waste (FW) from both academics and policy makers. Literature on household FW has increased more than twofold in the last five years [1,2], and research has focused mainly on identifying the factors associated with the behavior of individuals towards FW. The FW issue has been included in the concept of sustainable consumption and production, which is among the 17 Sustainable Development Goals defined by the United Nations (UN) in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development to transform our world. UN Sustainable Development Goal 12 includes states that its target is to halve per capita FW at retail and consumer levels and reduce food loss throughout production and food supply chains (FSCs), including post-harvest losses, by 2030 [3]. Interventions by member states, regions, cities, and businesses along the FSC are essential for the prevention of FW and for dealing with the different situations that may arise across countries and regions, and awareness campaigns are required in order to change consumer behavior [5]

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