Food waste during Covid- 19 lockdown period and consumer behaviour – The case of Greece

Abstract

Food waste is one of the most important concerns in modern societies. This is because food waste has a negative impact on the environment, society and the economy. In Greece, research on consumer behaviour and food waste is still nascent. In recent times, the COVID-19 global pandemic has brought about changes in consumer behaviour in purchase, consumption and food disposal. This paper presents aspects of the behaviour of Greek consumers regarding food waste during the lockdown imposed due to the pandemic. This nationwide survey took place in April 2020 during the first lockdown period, exclusively through an electronic questionnaire and presents the results obtained from the 2205 participants. The results show a high degree of awareness by the Greek consumers' relative to the food waste problem. This study also reveals stability in shopping frequency (supermarket/groceries) and spending for food, as also an increase in food quantities purchased especially by young people and mostly through product offers. Further, a cluster analysis was performed with the distribution of the participants, based on behaviours related to food waste, revealing significant differences among seven types of consumers. Finally, a multinomial logistic regression was adopted in order to provide a thorough understanding of how specific variables behave within the seven-cluster model and their prediction ability.