Sustainable consumption of bakery products; a challenge for Czech consumers and producers

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to investigate the level of bakery product wastes in Czech households, economic, social and institutional factors which affect bakery products consumption and wastes and which role producers, retailers and consumers themselves play in it. The research deploys quantitative assessment of the relationship between prices, income and consumed quantities and qualitative assessment (surveys and focus groups) of opinions and attitudes of consumers, producers and retailers to wastes. To do the analysis we consider the model of social practices. We addressed a sample made by 260 respondents. The results suggest the actual wastes of bakery products are relatively low (less than 5%), because of quite large recoverability of bread and roll surpluses in households. The critical issue for bread and rolls consumption is quality and "freshness". The notion of freshness of bakery products has changed since the mid of the 1990s. Furthermore, the food is not considered to be wasted when it is either used as a feeding or composted. The norms on handling with bread in households are likely not as strong as in the past, nevertheless, most of the participants in the focus groups agreed that bread is food which should not be wasted.