Consumers’ food waste behaviour in restaurants

Abstract

Reducing food waste is one strategy to minimize environmental food print, and to handle a growing population in a sustainable way. Restaurants have the highest consumer food waste in the public sector (Silvennoinen et al., 2015), which point to room for improvements in this area. There is also a lack of research on food waste behaviour in restaurants. Using theory of planned behaviour (TPB), two conceptual models of factors that influence consumers’ food waste behaviour was developed. A first aim of this study is to fill the empirical gap of quantitative methods on food waste behaviour in restaurants. The second aim is to develop a model to explain what underlying factors cause food waste behaviour in restaurants. That can be a basis for reduced food waste behaviour. Environmental attitudes and environmental beliefs turned out to be the strongest predictors of food waste behaviour. Moral norms also affect environmental attitudes. Other factors influencing consumers’ food waste behaviour in restaurants are: situational factors and intention to avoid food waste.