Citizens’ Food Habit Behavior and Food Waste Consequences during the First COVID-19 Lockdown in Spain

Berta Vidal-Mones, Héctor Barco, Raquel Diaz-Ruiz and Maria-Angeles Fernandez-Zamudio
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Berta Vidal-Mones: Center for Agro-Food Economy and Development (CREDA-UPC-IRTA), Castelldefels, 08860 Barcelona, Spain
Héctor Barco: Enraíza Derechos, 20012 San Sebastian, Spain
Raquel Diaz-Ruiz: Fundación Espigoladors, 08810 Barcelona, Spain
Maria-Angeles Fernandez-Zamudio: Centro para el Desarrollo de la Agricultura Sostenible, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Agrarias, Moncada, 46113 Valencia, Spain

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 6, 1-20

Abstract: During the first COVID-19 wave in Spain, confining the population at home was seen as an effective way to prevent the disease from spreading. This limited mobility affected citizens’ routines at homes because it influenced their life habits, including food management. The main objective of this paper was to understand citizens’ food waste (FW) behavior during the first COVID-19 lockdown in Spain by understanding related food practices that could have influenced FW generation. An online survey was conducted from 14 May to 11 June, 2020; 6293 valid responses were collected and analyzed, and 95% of the participants declared not wasting more food than usual. On average, they reported wasting 234 g per household per week, which equals 88 g per capita. We found significant differences in the reported FW generation between participants regarding their age, gender, household composition, and employment status due to COVID-19. In addition, food-related behaviors such as buying more food than usual due to fear or anxiety, storing more food than before the lockdown, and improvising when buying groceries seemed to affect the FW reported by the participants. The paper ends by comparing the conclusions drawn by different works conducted in other countries for a similar purpose.

Keywords: food waste; food habits; food management; food consumption; coronavirus; confinement; pandemic; household sector (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 (10)

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