IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v14y2022i16p10183-d889812.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Buy Three to Waste One? How Real-World Purchase Data Predict Groups of Food Wasters

Author

Listed:
  • Sybilla Merian

    (Department of Business Administration, Chair of Marketing, University of Zurich, 8032 Zurich, Switzerland)

  • Sabrina Stöeckli

    (Department of Business Administration, Chair of Marketing, University of Zurich, 8032 Zurich, Switzerland
    Department Consumer Behavior, Institute of Marketing and Management, University of Bern, 3012 Bern, Switzerland)

  • Klaus Ludwig Fuchs

    (Department of Management, Technology and Economics (D-MTEC), ETH Zurich, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland)

  • Martin Natter

    (Department of Business Administration, Chair of Marketing, University of Zurich, 8032 Zurich, Switzerland)

Abstract

Approximately one-third of all food produced for human consumption is either lost or wasted. Given the central position of retailers in the supply chain, they have the potential to effectively reduce consumer food waste by implementing targeted interventions. To do so, however, they should target distinct consumer groups. In this research, we use a unique data set comprising the grocery shopping data of customers who use loyalty cards, complemented with food waste reports, to derive three distinct target groups: traditionals , time - constrained , and convenience lovers . Based on the general behavioral change literature, we discuss diverse target group-specific interventions that retailers can implement to reduce consumer food waste. Overall, we pave a research path to examine how retailers and marketing can effectively shift consumer behavior toward more sustainable food and shopping practices and assume responsibility within the food supply chain.

Suggested Citation

  • Sybilla Merian & Sabrina Stöeckli & Klaus Ludwig Fuchs & Martin Natter, 2022. "Buy Three to Waste One? How Real-World Purchase Data Predict Groups of Food Wasters," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(16), pages 1-21, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:16:p:10183-:d:889812
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/16/10183/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/16/10183/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Juliane Jörissen & Carmen Priefer & Klaus-Rainer Bräutigam, 2015. "Food Waste Generation at Household Level: Results of a Survey among Employees of Two European Research Centers in Italy and Germany," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(3), pages 1-21, March.
    2. Young, C. William & Russell, Sally V. & Barkemeyer, Ralf, 2017. "Social media is not the ‘silver bullet’ to reducing household food waste, a response to Grainger and Stewart (2017)," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 405-406.
    3. Eriksson, Mattias & Ghosh, Ranjan & Mattsson, Lisa & Ismatov, Alisher, 2017. "Take-back agreements in the perspective of food waste generation at the supplier-retailer interface," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 83-93.
    4. Grün, Bettina & Leisch, Friedrich, 2008. "FlexMix Version 2: Finite Mixtures with Concomitant Variables and Varying and Constant Parameters," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 28(i04).
    5. Delley, Mathilde & Brunner, Thomas A., 2017. "Foodwaste within Swiss households: A segmentation of the population and suggestions for preventive measures," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 172-184.
    6. Reynolds, Christian & Goucher, Liam & Quested, Tom & Bromley, Sarah & Gillick, Sam & Wells, Victoria K. & Evans, David & Koh, Lenny & Carlsson Kanyama, Annika & Katzeff, Cecilia & Svenfelt, Åsa & Jack, 2019. "Review: Consumption-stage food waste reduction interventions – What works and how to design better interventions," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 7-27.
    7. Guillaume Le Borgne & Lucie Sirieix & Sandrine Costa, 2018. "Perceived probability of food waste: Influence on consumer attitudes towards and choice of sales promotions," Post-Print hal-02621163, HAL.
    8. Johanna F Gollnhofer & Henri A Weijo & John W Schouten & Eileen FischerEditor & Linda L PriceEditor & Güliz GerAssociate Editor, 2019. "Consumer Movements and Value Regimes: Fighting Food Waste in Germany by Building Alternative Object Pathways," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 46(3), pages 460-482.
    9. Elena Belavina, 2021. "Grocery Store Density and Food Waste," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 23(1), pages 1-18, 1-2.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sotiris Ntai & Maria Kontopanou & Foivos Anastasiadis, 2025. "Leveraging Household Food Waste Consumer Behaviour to Optimise Logistics," Logistics, MDPI, vol. 9(3), pages 1-17, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Maria-Georgeta Moldovan & Dan-Cristian Dabija & Cristina Bianca Pocol, 2022. "Resources Management for a Resilient World: A Literature Review of Eastern European Countries with Focus on Household Behaviour and Trends Related to Food Waste," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-13, June.
    2. Eulalia Skawińska & Romuald I. Zalewski & Joanna Wyrwa, 2023. "Students’ Food Consumption Behavior during COVID-19 Lockdown," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(12), pages 1-28, June.
    3. Efrat Elimelech & Eyal Ert & Ofira Ayalon, 2019. "Exploring the Drivers behind Self-Reported and Measured Food Wastage," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(20), pages 1-19, October.
    4. Christina Marouli, 2024. "Food waste interventions: Barriers on the way to sustainable food systems," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(1), pages 367-380, February.
    5. Nicholas Davison & William Young & Andrew Ross & Timothy Cockerill & Shailendrasingh Rajput, 2022. "Investigating the Impacts of Behavioural-Change Interventions and COVID-19 on the Food-Waste-Generation Behaviours of Catered Students in the UK and India," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-23, May.
    6. Valentina Gomes Haensel Schmitt & Mirza Marvel Cequea & Jessika Milagros Vásquez Neyra & Marcos Ferasso, 2021. "Consumption Behavior and Residential Food Waste during the COVID-19 Pandemic Outbreak in Brazil," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(7), pages 1-21, March.
    7. Lingfei Wang & Yuqin Yang & Guoyan Wang, 2022. "The Clean Your Plate Campaign: Resisting Table Food Waste in an Unstable World," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-17, April.
    8. Li Jia & Guanghua Qiao, 2022. "Quantification, Environmental Impact, and Behavior Management: A Bibliometric Analysis and Review of Global Food Waste Research Based on CiteSpace," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(18), pages 1-24, September.
    9. Christian Kleiber & Achim Zeileis, 2016. "Visualizing Count Data Regressions Using Rootograms," The American Statistician, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 70(3), pages 296-303, July.
    10. Lebret, Rémi & Iovleff, Serge & Langrognet, Florent & Biernacki, Christophe & Celeux, Gilles & Govaert, Gérard, 2015. "Rmixmod: The R Package of the Model-Based Unsupervised, Supervised, and Semi-Supervised Classification Mixmod Library," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 67(i06).
    11. Grün, Bettina & Kosmidis, Ioannis & Zeileis, Achim, 2012. "Extended Beta Regression in R: Shaken, Stirred, Mixed, and Partitioned," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 48(i11).
    12. Marc A. Scott & Kaushik Mohan & Jacques‐Antoine Gauthier, 2020. "Model‐based clustering and analysis of life history data," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 183(3), pages 1231-1251, June.
    13. Cătălina Chinie & Isabelle Biclesanu & Francesco Bellini, 2021. "The Impact of Awareness Campaigns on Combating the Food Wasting Behavior of Consumers," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(20), pages 1-17, October.
    14. Vittoria Pilone & Naomi di Santo & Roberta Sisto, 2023. "Factors affecting food waste: A bibliometric review on the household behaviors," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 18(7), pages 1-21, July.
    15. Lluís Bermúdez & Dimitris Karlis & Isabel Morillo, 2020. "Modelling Unobserved Heterogeneity in Claim Counts Using Finite Mixture Models," Risks, MDPI, vol. 8(1), pages 1-13, January.
    16. Salvatore Ingrassia & Antonio Punzo & Giorgio Vittadini & Simona Minotti, 2015. "The Generalized Linear Mixed Cluster-Weighted Model," Journal of Classification, Springer;The Classification Society, vol. 32(1), pages 85-113, April.
    17. Thyberg, Krista L. & Tonjes, David J., 2016. "Drivers of food waste and their implications for sustainable policy development," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 110-123.
    18. Pei-Hsun Hsieh & Reuben Kline, 2025. "Deservingness heuristics drive redistributive choices, but weights on recipient effort vary," Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 12(1), pages 1-12, December.
    19. Elżbieta Goryńska-Goldmann & Michał Gazdecki & Krystyna Rejman & Joanna Kobus-Cisowska & Sylwia Łaba & Robert Łaba, 2020. "How to Prevent Bread Losses in the Baking and Confectionery Industry?—Measurement, Causes, Management and Prevention," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-24, December.
    20. Maria Elena Latino & Marta Menegoli & Martina De Giovanni, 2021. "Evaluating the Sustainability Dimensions in the Food Supply Chain: Literature Review and Research Routes," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(21), pages 1-25, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:16:p:10183-:d:889812. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.