Behavioral and demographics antecedents to household food waste

• Main Author: Apolonio, Rocel A.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2019
• Subjects: Food waste; Food waste—Psychological aspects; Environmental Studies; Social and Behavioral Sciences
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_doctoral/1418; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/context/etd_doctoral/article/2465/viewcontent/Apolonio_Rocel_11685808_Edited.pdf
• Institution: De La Salle University

Researches about antecedents to household food waste generation are increasingly becoming popular. Various dimensions such as food handling, purchasing behavior, waste management behavior, consumer values, the role of external cues and many other set of predictors, including demographic variables were identified by scholars as major influencers of food waste generation. However, there are conflicting inferences about the identified antecedents just as there remains no consensus as to how age, gender and income affect food waste. Moreover, there is limited number of literature on the influence of consumer values on food waste and in view of the local context. With the objective of augmenting extant literature, a survey of 180 primary purchasers of households was conducted, utilizing PLS-SEM as a statistical tool. Findings of this research reveals that food habits such as food conservation, purchasing behavior, and freshness of food response – the acceptance of expiration date-based priced and suboptimal food are very important to determine the extent of food waste generation. Environmental concern shows a positive effect on materialism, which supports literature positing that people who expressed high environmental concern do not necessarily have low materialistic values and vice versa. Environmental concern could be a normative belief, which is an individual’s perception of people’s expectations that are socially accepted and desirable. Thus, the respondents may have environmental concern because this is the right behavior but this does not refrain the individuals in the pursuit of material life domain satisfaction.