Changes in households' stances on wasting food during the COVID-19 pandemic

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F62156489%3A43110%2F22%3A43922204" target="_blank" >RIV/62156489:43110/22:43922204 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="http://www.wasteforum.cz/cisla/WF_3_2022.pdf#page=13" target="_blank" >http://www.wasteforum.cz/cisla/WF_3_2022.pdf#page=13</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

—

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Changes in households' stances on wasting food during the COVID-19 pandemic

Original language description

In developed countries in Europe, households, meaning consumers, are part of the links of the food chain that contribute the most to overall food waste. This results in considerably adverse economic, social, and also environmental impacts. The COVID-19 pandemic, which erupted at the beginning of 2020, brought with it unprecedented changes on a global scale that deepened concerns regarding resources and led to an even greater effort to reduce food waste. Although the research that has already been performed shows results that are not united in view of the real change to the amount of consumer food waste caused by the pandemic, the results do agree that, during the pandemic, consumers began to contemplate food waste more, at least tried to reduce the amount of food they wasted, and also started to cook more at home. This article looks at how the COVID-19 pandemic influenced the subjective stances and habits of Czech households when handling and wasting food, as well as the actual changes seen in this area during the pandemic. The results are based on an analysis and comparison of primary data (the Mann-Whitney U test was used) achieved via two questionnaire surveys amongst Czech households, which were held during the pandemic&apos;s first (395 respondents) and second outbreaks (442 respondents). In the subjective estimates of the amount of households&apos; food waste, a shift may be seen towards higher estimates of the amount of food wasted. Before the pandemic, this estimate was set at 12.27 kg/person/year, however, it rose to 15.43 kg/person/year during the pandemic. Statistically significant changes may also be found in the causes of food waste in households. Although food spoiling and exceeded use-by and best before dates are still the main causes of food waste, we can track an increase in the number of households that also throw out food because they purchase packages that are too large and are unable to consume them in time. During the pandemic, more households started to purchase food regularly, inspect the condition of their supplies before going shopping, and purchase large packages of food. More households also admitted that, during the pandemic, it was more difficult for them to plan when to prepare and consume at home so that nothing would be thrown away and that shopping for food to prepare and consume immediately ended up costing more than before the pandemic. In terms of the individual categories of food, this primarily resulted in a reduced frequency of fruits and vegetables being thrown out, however, the opposite is true for meat products, home-cooked meals, and ready-made meals brought home from restaurants. No statistically significant change was observed for bakery products during either period, even though bakery products are similar to fruits and vegetables in that they remain the most often wasted type of food.

Czech name

—

Czech description

—

Type

J_SC - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the SCOPUS database

CEP classification

—

OECD FORD branch

50401 - Sociology

Project

<a href="/en/project/TL02000092" target="_blank" >TL02000092: Pro-environmental behavior of households and incentives for behavioral change in food waste production</a><br>

Continuities

P - Projekt vyzkumu a vyvoje financovany z verejnych zdroju (s odkazem do CEP)

Publication year

2022

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Waste Forum

ISSN

1804-0195

e-ISSN

1804-0195

Volume of the periodical

Neuveden

Issue of the periodical within the volume

3

Country of publishing house

CZ - CZECH REPUBLIC

Number of pages

18

Pages from-to

161-178

UT code for WoS article

—

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85139759726