Domestic Food Waste and Covid-19 Concern: An Application of the Theory of Planned Behaviour

Mario Amato, Fabio Verneau, Adele Coppola and Francesco La Barbera
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Mario Amato: Department of Political Science, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, 80138 Napoli, Italy
Fabio Verneau: Department of Political Science, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, 80138 Napoli, Italy
Adele Coppola: SAFE-School of Agricultural, Forestry, Food and Environmental Sciences, Università degli Studi Della Basilicata, 85100 Potenza, Italy
Francesco La Barbera: Department of Political Science, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, 80138 Napoli, Italy

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 15, 1-12

Abstract: The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic rapidly and dramatically disrupted household behaviours in almost all areas and, among these, eating behaviours and daily food patterns have also been radically altered. All reported changes have potential effects in terms of food waste, which is a global problem that mainly occurs at household level. Many scholars attempted to understand the antecedents of food waste in the framework of Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB). In this paper we follow this strain of research by focussing on two different behaviours, suggested by the Waste Framework Directive of the EU, namely (a) reducing servings and (b) using leftovers, which may be predicted by the intention to reduce food waste. An online questionnaire containing the key constructs of the TPB and the concern towards the pandemic was administered to a sample of 201 Italian consumers. Results show that the TPB model was confirmed for both behaviours while the Covid-19 concern had no direct effect. However, in the case of portion reduction, there is a significant interaction between concern and intention not to waste food. That is, the effect of intention on reducing servings is increasing as the level of concern increases. Therefore, some indications on how to address food waste policies are drawn.

Keywords: food waste; TPB; moderation; leftovers; reduce servings (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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