Food Waste: Destructive Behaviour and Problem Statement

Food waste is an urgent world issue that schould be mentioned as many times as possible, so that is why I chose to write a food waste essay in which we will discuss what kind of behaviour leads to food waste. We will conclude with problem statement and awareness what we as human can do to solve this problem.

Food management starts long before the food enters the homes, namely at the point when consumer decide what to purchase. In order to reduce food waste, meal planning and a shopping list is necessary before going to the supermarket. Justification is that planning raises shopping efficiency and prevents from purchasing too much food. However, over planning can lead to food waste in case people do not want to deviate from their plans in favour of avoiding spoilage.

Shopping

Consumer behaviour in stores have an impact on their food waste levels. Parizeau et al. states that consumer who tend to purchase food impulsively also tend to waste more. Also, consumer who are price conscious and are attracted to discounts are assumed to waste more.

Storing

Organized food storing, including fridge and shelf organisation and temperature and light intensity, has an impact on the consumers overview of their food stock and the shelf life. It helps to efficient purchasing and extend the time food can be consumed securely.

Preparing

Carefully preparing the food, for example, by measuring quantities before cooking can be helpful to reduce food waste. Scilicet, accidentally cooking too much is an often-mentioned cause for food waste. Furthermore, a general set of cooking skills is required to avoid casualties like burning or over salting the food/

Consumption

To avoid food waste, leftovers can be stored and consumed at another point of time. Obviously, people with the behaviour of preserving and consuming leftovers generate less food waste. Leftovers can be used for new meal creations, can be eaten directly or in the worst case are thrown away.

The behaviours mentioned above have an impact on food waste levels in households. Even if it looks like a linear process, the food does not pass the stages in a linear approach. Stages can be passed, for example, if a meal is bought and consumed directly. In a perfect situation, consumer would become better in their food management behaviour as soon as they recognize the capability in food waste reduction. Surprisingly, people are aware of the possibility to achieve food waste reduction but still do not adapt their behaviours. The question now is: are consumer not willing to behave accordingly or are they incapable to do so?

Drivers of Food Waste Behaviours

Behavioural change is a process that consists of multiple phases whereby people adjust their behaviour. This change usually is driven by internal or external motivations to do so. The reduction of food waste is a goal-driven behavioural change which is based on two stages: the goal setting and the goal striving stage.

Goal Setting

Goal setting – Understanding why some people are motivated to avoid food waste while others are not. Goal striving – The Implementation of intentions to change. Unfortunately, addressing an intention to change does not comprise actually performing it (Sheeran and Webb, 2016). This is because people usually have several food-related goals they want to act upon; these include assuring to have enough food for everyone at home, eat safe foods and enjoy having a meal. Simultaneously, some people only have a limited amount of time, cognitive ability to perform and money to use for food shopping and for that reason need to make decisions on which goals to follow up. An individual can have various goals, therefore, people will choose to reduce food waste more easily, when they can perform another valued goal at the same time (e.g. transforming leftovers quickly into delicious new meals). Requirements for the goal achievement are abilities (i.e. skills and knowledge) and opportunities. If one of the requirements is missing, people will be limited in accurately reducing their food waste.

Goal Setting – motivation to change. There are arguments to assume that people want to avoid food waste, as they look at it as a waste of money and morally incorrect. Moreover, even if they feel guilty about it, it does not lead people to purposely set a goal for food waste reduction. The reason for that are the following factors that influence how valuable a goal to the individual is: attitude, problem awareness, behavioural influence and responsibility as well as social norms. Some of the aspects were discussed in the previous chapter on the theory of planned behaviour and again summarized below.

Attitude

As explained in the paragraph of TPB is attitude a strong predictor of intention and thus for goal setting. Beliefs and emotions are reflections of how an individual perceives the problem of food waste. Attitudes on that topic are predominantly negative but the varieties on attitudes still affect how much food is wasted. Hence, the more pessimistic a consumers’ attitude, the less food they waste.

Conclusion: Problem Awareness

Problem awareness, in the case of food waste, has an impact on attitudes and intentions as well as indirectly on the consumer behaviour. Studies have shown that people in general underestimate the degree and consequences of worldwide food waste levels on the environment. Additionally, they underestimate the amount of food waste generated by themselves. People with greater awareness on the issue tend to have more waste prevention behaviours and therefore produce less waste.