Abstract
Food waste is a global challenge that raises many questions about the reasons and prevalence of this phenomenon in all sectors of the economy. The youth is regarded as a consumer group, which is the most prone to food waste. This paper aims to understand their food waste intentions to support tailored policies for policymakers, retailers, and other market actors. We applied the extended Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to find the relevant variables that affect the youth’s intention not to waste food. Besides creating a general model, we divided the sample into segments differing in respondents’ intentions to avoid food waste and specific socioeconomic characteristics. The data confirm significant differences between young women and men from urban and rural areas. Each of the segments was characterized by specific latent variables, influencing the intentions to avoid food waste. This segmentation allowed for developing policy recommendations that were tailored to each segment. It is a unique approach to differentiate the youth to unveil their specific food-waste intentions. Based on the above, we conclude that segmenting is a useful approach to the general TPB model, allowing for interesting insights. A fine segmentation is also a milestone to develop tailored policies, interventions, and communication on food waste reduction in rural and urban areas.
Highlights
Food waste is a global challenge that raises many questions about the reasons and prevalence of this phenomenon in all sectors of the economy
We developed the general model, based on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) for consumers who lived in the northwest part of Poland (i.e., Great Poland)
Our method revealed that these latent variables depend on gender, age, body mass index, educational level, place of residence, household size, and household income
Summary
Food waste is a global challenge that raises many questions about the reasons and prevalence of this phenomenon in all sectors of the economy. The topic has become one of the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations, which calls for halving per capita global food waste at retail and consumer levels by 2030 [1]. According to FAO [2], around 1.3 billion tons of food are lost or wasted worldwide, equivalent to one-third of food produced for human consumption. In the European Union, approximately 88 million tons of food are wasted [3]. Between 158 and 298 kg per person per year of food was wasted in the European Union (EU) in 2006 [4]. The top five of the most profligate countries in the European Union constituted Germany (10.3 million tonnes), the Netherlands (9.4 million), France (9 million), and Poland (8.9 million) in 2006 [4]
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