Intention to Purchase Active and Intelligent Packaging to Reduce Household Food Waste: Evidence from Italian Consumers

Antonella Cammarelle,Francesco Bimbo,Rosaria Viscecchia

doi:10.3390/su13084486

Antonella Cammarelle, Francesco Bimbo + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/su13084486

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Journal: Sustainability	Publication Date: Apr 17, 2021
Citations: 13	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: University of Foggia

Abstract

Innovations in food packaging, such as active and intelligent ones, improve food safety and lower household food waste by extending product shelf life and providing information about food quality, respectively. The consumer adoption of such innovations could contribute to reaching one of the Sustainable Development Goals which calls for halving the per capita global food waste by 2030. Thus, this paper aims to investigate the consumers’ willingness to purchase active and intelligent packaging to reduce household food waste using a sample of 260 Italian consumers and a modified Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) model. Using a structural equation model, findings show that respondents are more willing to purchase intelligent packaging rather than active packaging to reduce their wastes at home. Finally, attitudes, perceived behavioral control, awareness, and planning routines are the most important drivers of the intention to reduce household food waste.

Highlights

Sustainability 2021, 13, 4486. https://Ensuring food safety is an essential step to guarantee human health and to achieve food security [1] while, at the same time, it inevitably leads to the generation of food waste (FW) [2]
To measure the willingness to purchase active and intelligent packaging, respondents were asked to indicate their intentions with a seven-point Likert item scale ranging from “totally not willing” (1) to “totally willing” (7), related to these two statements: “Are you willing to purchase food products packed with active packaging?” and “Are you willing to purchase food products packed with intelligent packaging?” Lastly, the mean value was calculated for the elements of Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) measured by using a multiple-item scale as shown in Table 2 in Appendix A
The goodness-of-fit indicators were extremely close to the strictest threshold value of 0.90 for comparative fit index (CFI) and Tucker–Lewis Index (TLI) and equal to the cut-off point of 0.05 for root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA)

Summary

Introduction

Ensuring food safety is an essential step to guarantee human health and to achieve food security [1] while, at the same time, it inevitably leads to the generation of food waste (FW) [2]. New technology innovations, in the food packaging sector, are able to jointly ensure the safety of food, maintain the expected quality throughout the food supply chain (FSC), and allow lowering the waste generated at the household level by extending the product shelf life or indicating the quality level of the food product, supporting consumers in sustainable food choices [2,3,7]. Temperature indicators, freshness indicators, and leak indicators provide information to manufacturer, retailer, and consumer about food quality and safety based on the ability to test, detect, or record external or internal changes in the product’s environment [12,22,23,24] This technology could help retailers and consumers to reduce waste, minimizing the risk of foods still edible being thrown away [7,25].

Participants and Design

Measures

Estimation Method

Results

Discussions

Conclusions

Willing to purchase active packaging