Abstract
Halving food waste by 2050 as per the Sustainable Development Goal 12.3 is key to securing a food system that is sustainable. One approach to reducing household food waste is through education campaigns. We recruited 501 households divided into three types of intervention groups and compared with a control group to better understand the efficacy of diverse education campaign approaches. Food waste interventions included a passive approach (handouts), a community engagement approach, and a gamification approach. We conducted waste audits, household surveys (pre- and post-intervention), and a focus group at the end of the campaign. The passive and gamification groups had similarly high levels of participation, while participation in the community group was very low. The passive group and the gamification group had higher self-reported awareness of food wasting after the campaign and lower food wastage than the control group. Waste audits found marginally significant differences between the game group and the control (p = 0.07) and no difference between the other campaign groups and the control group in edible food wasted. Frequent gamers were found to generate less edible food waste than infrequent gamers. We conclude that the evidence about the potential for gamification as an effective education change tool is promising and we recommend further study.
Highlights
The wasting of food produced for human consumption has been connected to issues such as climate change, biodiversity loss, water loss, soil degradation, and hunger [1]
All three of our hypotheses contend that the campaign groups will throw out less edible food waste after the campaign than the control group
Our finding is that only the gamification group had a marginally significant result in terms of less edible food waste after the campaign (p = 0.07)
Summary
The wasting of food produced for human consumption has been connected to issues such as climate change, biodiversity loss, water loss, soil degradation, and hunger [1]. Efforts to prevent and reduce consumer food waste have included reducing cafeteria plate waste at an institutional level [5], changing guidelines around nutrition [6], food sharing apps [7], tailored home-based interventions [8], public commitments and goal setting [9], and information campaigns to increase food literacy. This last tool is the focus of our current study. The Love Food Hate Waste model has been franchised globally, including in Canada, with the campaign promoting recipes to transform leftovers, sharing catchy marketing campaigns, and offering tips and strategies to prevent food waste
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