Investigating Consumers’ Perception of Discounted Suboptimal Products at Retail Stores

Clara Cicatiello,Ludovica Principato,Luca Secondi

doi:10.3390/resources8030129

Clara Cicatiello, Ludovica Principato + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/resources8030129

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Journal: Resources	Publication Date: Jul 23, 2019
Citations: 21	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Roma Tre University, Tuscia University

Abstract

Following the increasing pressure to reduce food waste at supermarkets, many retailers are starting initiatives to prevent the disposal of food items or to manage the waste produced in a more sustainable way. The practice of applying discounts on close-to-date and other suboptimal products is becoming popular, as reducing price pushes consumers to accept small defects of food products. Here, the attitude of 218 supermarket customers towards these discounts is analysed, basing on a questionnaire survey. Two-thirds of the sample declare to be interested in discounts on close-to-date products; the determinants of this interest are studied through a Generalized Maximum Entropy model against a set of socio-demographic and behavioral factors. Results suggest that the interest towards discounts on close-to-date product is primarily driven by a general attitude to save money in food shopping. However, an interesting positive effect is observed for the use of a shopping list at the supermarket, which may be linked to a greater attention on food planning and, consequently, to a lower production of food waste at home. In conclusion, date-based pricing seems to be an effective strategy to address food waste reduction in a sustainable management perspective, for its attractive capacity on different profiles of consumers.

Highlights

Producing food is one of the human activities that has a higher impact on the environment.In the EU-28, food production processes generated 470.6 million tons of CO2 equivalent in 2012, corresponding to about 10% of total greenhouse gas emissions [1]
Two-thirds of the sample declare to be interested in discounts on close-to-date products; the determinants of this interest are studied through a Generalized Maximum Entropy model against a set of socio-demographic and behavioral factors
Results suggest that the interest towards discounts on close-to-date product is primarily driven by a general attitude to save money in food shopping

Summary

Introduction

Producing food is one of the human activities that has a higher impact on the environment.In the EU-28, food production processes generated 470.6 million tons of CO2 equivalent in 2012, corresponding to about 10% of total greenhouse gas emissions [1]. About one-third of the food globally produced is not consumed as it gets lost in the first stages of the supply chains, or wasted during commercialization and consumption [2]. This exerts a huge impact on the global environment, as scarce natural resources are used to produce foods that will never get consumed [3]. For this reason, food losses and waste are commonly considered one of the main challenges to the sustainability of food systems [4]. In the EU-28, it has been estimated that about 87 million tons of food waste are produced every year [6], out of which more than a half is at the household level

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