Still edible?
- 15.04.2015
- English Articles
- Anke Möser
- Juliane Yildiz
Peer-reviewed | Manuscript received: October 16, 2014 | Revision accepted: January 29, 2015
Consumer behaviour and knowledge on handling food
Introduction
About a third of all edible food in the world is wasted [1]. According to a study performed by the Institute for Sanitary Engineering, Water Quality and Solid Waste Management Institutes (ISWA), about 70 % of this food is discarded by private households [2]. Beretta et al. have confirmed that the values in Switzerland are about as high; about half of avoidable food waste in Switzerland comes from private households [3]. For Great Britain, Quested and Johnson have calculated that private households throw out about 22 % of purchased foods1 [4]. There is therefore increasing interest in food waste in industrial countries, with open discussion about the causes and possible solutions.
Background
EU Directive 2008/98/EU contains a general definition of the concept of waste [5]. According to the ISWA, “food waste” includes domestic food waste, food from catering establishments, food from agricultural production, together with waste in food processing and in wholesaling and retailing. Moreover, it includes all foods that were discarded even though they were edible [2].
Summary
Empirical studies have found that each German throws out about 80 kg of edible food each year. In this context, the present study investigates consumer knowledge on the best before date [Mindesthaltbarkeitsdatum] and use-by date [Verbrauchsdatum], as well as how to use different methods to protect food from spoiling and the reasons for disposing of food. It was worrying that about a quarter of respondents were uncertain about the distinction between the best before date and the use-by date. With the help of cluster analysis, four different groups of consumers were identified. This showed that on the one hand only quite specific aspects of consumer behaviour were relevant. On the other hand, the group of “more careless consumers” were generally careless in handling food. It was possible to derive recommendations to reduce food waste.
Keywords: food waste, consumer knowledge, cluster analysis
