Identifying interventions to reduce household food waste based on food categories

Household food waste is a global problem that is often tackled by focusing on key behaviours leading to overall food waste. An important entry point to develop interventions is to understand food category-specific behavioural links to household food waste. However, there is a limited focus on this approach in the food waste literature. This paper examines various behavioural drivers influencing the wastage of six specific food categories - fruits and vegetables, dairy, meat and seafood, bakery, frozen foods, and packaged and pantry food. Using a large representative sample (n = 5272) and Tobit regression methods, it analyses the wastage of each food category and associated behavioural factors including food storing, shopping, disposal and food labelling. We find that the households’ perceptions on the safe consumption of food after the best before date has a significant negative association with all food waste categories. Fruit and vegetable waste is by far the largest food waste category in terms of food waste amount. Results also reveal that overprovisioning leads to more food waste in fruits and vegetables, dairy and frozen foods. Households’ preference to consume freshest possible food also results in more bread and bakery waste, and packaged and pantry food waste, than other food categories investigated. Food storage interventions offer the most promising entry point for reducing waste in the food categories analysed. The findings are useful when devising and prioritising food category based behavioural intervention strategies to reduce household food waste.