Food waste is an important societal problem with negative consequences for food security, the environment, and consumer well-being. Every year, one-third of all edible food products for human consumption are wasted or lost in the supply chain, while at the same time around 1 billion people around the globe are malnourished. In industrialized countries, per capita food waste amounts to 95–115 kilograms per year; the food wasted at the consumer level in industrial countries almost equals the total food production in subSaharan Africa (Gustavsson et al. 2011; Naylor 2011). Avoidable food waste also has an adverse environmental impact; the global carbon footprint of food waste ranks third, after the United States and China (FAO 2013). Food waste occurs throughout the whole food supply chain, yet reducing it at the consumer or household level is seen as a priority for several reasons. First, in industrialized countries, the largest share of food waste occurs at the consumer level (Gustavsson et al. 2011). Second, once the food has been transported to the consumer and possibly prepared in-home, use of resources and environmental impact is at its maximum. Third, while a large part of food lost earlier in the supply chain is at least used, for instance, to feed animals, household food waste for the most part ends up in the trash, causing additional costs and environmental impact (Gustavsson et al. 2011; Soethoudt and Timmermans 2013). Despite the dimension and urgency of the problem, academic literature researching food waste from a consumer behavior perspective is scarce. In particular, literature uncovering the theoretical mechanisms leading to food waste is lacking. The goal of this article is to shortly summarize what we know about why food waste occurs, and to develop promising avenues for future research to tackle this important problem.