Food for Thought: Can Social Norms and Food Habit Curtail Household Food Waste?

Abstract

In the many phases of the food supply chain, studies have revealed how food is lost and wasted. One of these stages, the consumption stage, has been linked to a significant amount of household food waste. Scholars have proposed a number of factors as predictors of food waste generation, including consumer behavior, environmental awareness and concern; and social norms. This study aims to investigate the role of consumer values and social norms on household food waste. It utilized a semi-structured interview for three hundred three (303) household-respondents, adopted Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) for data measure and analysis. Environmental concern was significantly and positively linked with both types of social norms, the descriptive and injunctive norms.  The results of this study show that the amount of food waste generated depends on dietary patterns including food preservation and acceptance of both suboptimal and food with an expiration date. It has been discovered that materialism directly affects how much food is wasted.  To explain, households who hold strong environmental norms demonstrate environmental concern by avoiding waste.