COVID-19 virus outbreak lockdown: What impacts on household food wastage?

Sarra Jribi, Hanen Ben Ismail, Darine Doggui and Hajer Debbabi ()
Additional contact information
Sarra Jribi: University of Carthage
Hanen Ben Ismail: University of Carthage
Darine Doggui: National Institute for Consumption (INC)
Hajer Debbabi: University of Carthage

Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, 2020, vol. 22, issue 5, No 5, 3939-3955

Abstract: Abstract The 2019–2020 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is a public health issue. Lockdown is among options suggested to reduce spread of the virus. This study aimed to determining the impact of COVID-19 lockdown on Tunisian consumer awareness, attitudes and behaviors related to food wastage. An online survey was conducted during the first 2 weeks of COVID-19 lockdown. The survey collected information on demographic data, awareness and attitudes toward food waste, food purchase behavior and household food expenditure estimation; extent of household food waste; willingness and information needs to reduce food waste. This study included 284 respondents. About 89% of respondents claimed to be aware of food waste, and the COVID-19 lockdown would impact for 93% of respondents, their waste levels, and for 80%, their grocery shopping habits. Interestingly, the COVID-19 lockdown improved food shopping performances and pushed toward a positive behavioral change regarding food wastage: 85% respondents declared nothing of what they bought would be discarded, and most of the respondents have set up a strategy of saving, storing and eating leftovers. The most cited reasons given for discarding food were overcooking, inappropriate storage and overbuying. Consumers’ changes in food waste prevention might be probably driven more by the socioeconomical context of the COVID-19 lockdown (i.e. food availability, restricted movements, loss of income), than by a pro-environmental concern. Finally, our study pointed out the consumers’ needs of information for taking further action. In conclusion, our study can constitute a basis to further promote household food waste prevention behavior, outlasting the COVID-19 crisis.

Keywords: COVID-19 lockdown; Household food waste; Saving strategy; Consumers’ behavior (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (69)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10668-020-00740-y Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:endesu:v:22:y:2020:i:5:d:10.1007_s10668-020-00740-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10668

DOI: 10.1007/s10668-020-00740-y

Access Statistics for this article

Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development is currently edited by Luc Hens

More articles in Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().