Abstract
Currently, food waste is estimated at more than one-third of all food produced, and the primary responsibility for this phenomenon is attributed to households. Therefore, it seems reasonable to take action to limit food waste and to raise awareness about this link in the chain. To develop and implement educational programs addressed at consumers it is necessary to understand the factors determining food waste in households. Segmentation is a tool that can help effectively reach consumers who are to the greatest extent wasting food which identifies homogeneous clusters of consumers. The aim of this study was to perform segmentation to identify consumer groups with similar behaviors in relation to food, with particular emphasis on food wastage. We carried out segmentation on a representative sample of Polish people over 18 years of age and to identified three clusters of consumers. The three consumer segments diagnosed differed in sociodemographic terms, i.e., number of adults, number of children, subjective assessment of the financial situation, and percentage of spending on food. The segment exhibiting a high frequency of discarding food due to too large package size included single and double households.
Highlights
Waste, which is estimated at more than one-third of all food produced, is becoming a serious global problem that threatens the sustainable system, generating negative social, ecological, economic, and ethical consequences [1,2]
Food waste is produced along the various stages of the food supply chain [4]
More than half of households in Cluster 1 are formed by two adults and one in five households consists of a single person, or three or more adults
Summary
Waste, which is estimated at more than one-third of all food produced, is becoming a serious global problem that threatens the sustainable system, generating negative social, ecological, economic, and ethical consequences [1,2]. With respect to the quantity of food produced, this value is approximately 20%. Food waste is produced along the various stages of the food supply chain [4]. The sectors contributing the most to food waste are households (47 million tons) and processing (17 million tons). These two sectors account for 72% of the EU’s food waste. Of the remaining 28% of food waste, 11 million tons (12%) comes from food service, nine million tons (11%) comes from primary production, and five million tons (5%) comes from wholesale and retail [3]
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