New consumers behaviours in the sharing economy: An experimental analysis on food waste reduction

Piergiuseppe Morone (), Pasquale Marcello Falcone (), Enrica Imbert (), Marcello Morone () and Andrea Morone
Additional contact information
Piergiuseppe Morone: University of Rome & Unitelma Sapienza, Italy
Enrica Imbert: University of Rome & Unitelma Sapienza, Italy
Marcello Morone: Independent

No 2016/11, Working Papers from Economics Department, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón (Spain)

Abstract: Food security, along with growing population and the associated environmental concerns, make food waste and loss a central topic in economic analysis. While food losses occur mostly at the production, postharvest and processing phases of the supply chain, food waste takes place mainly at the end of the chain and therefore concerns primarily the habits and behaviour patterns of retailers and consumers. Many solutions and practices have been proposed and oftentimes implemented in order to “keep food out of landfills”, thus reducing food waste at the source. However, little attention has been paid to the possible sharing of consumer-side food surplus. In this context, food sharing could represent an effective way to tackle food waste at the consumers’ level, with both environmental and economic potential positive effects. Currently, several initiatives and start-ups are being developed in the US and Europe, involving the collection and use of the excess of food from consumers and retailers and the promotion of collaborative consumption models (e.g. Foodsharing, Growington, Feastly, etc.). Nevertheless, there is still little empirical evidence testing the effectiveness of introducing sharing economy approaches to reduce food waste. This study seeks to fill this gap through a framed field experiment. We run two experimental treatments; in the control treatment students were asked to behave according to their regular food consumption habits, and in the food sharing treatment the same students were instructed to purchase food, cook and consume it collectively. Preliminary results showed that the adoption by households of food sharing practices do not automatically translate into food waste reduction. A number of factors (environmental and economic awareness, domestic skills and collaborative behaviors) might act as ‘enablers’ to make sharing practices effective.

Keywords: Food waste; sharing economy; food sharing; framed field experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 L66 Q50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 15 pages
Date: 2016
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-cbe, nep-cse and nep-exp
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.doctreballeco.uji.es/wpficheros/Morone_et_al_11_2016.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: New consumers behaviours in the sharing economy: an experimental analysis on food waste reduction (2016)
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:jau:wpaper:2016/11

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Economics Department, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón (Spain) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by María Aurora Garcia Gallego ().