Household food waste generation: young consumers behaviour, habits and attitudes

Abstract

Developing a sustainable food system can be achieved by reducing the amount of food waste generated. Large amounts of food are wasted worldwide. In the European Union alone, 88 million tonnes of food wastes are discarded annually. The high amount of waste generated is a significant threat to the environment. Food waste is generated at each stage of the life cycle, but the largest amount is recorded at the household level. In order to design preventive measures and contribute to environmental planning measures, the consumer behaviour must be evaluated. This paper presents the results obtained by observing the behaviour of young Romanian consumers regarding food waste generation. A structured questionnaire was developed, and face-to-face interviews were conducted. The research data were collected during 2 months (October and November 2016). The results show that most of the respondents prefer to buy food from the supermarket and almost half of them are buying food products every day. They specified that sometimes they are attracted by special offers and they agree that the main reason for food waste generation is the expiration date. The internal consistency of the results was determined using statistical analysis. One-way analysis of variance was used in order to find how well the model fits the data and if the model meets the assumptions of the analysis. Regarding the epistemology of the research, this study was conducted in a constructivist paradigm.