Don't Put All Your Eggs in One Basket: Testing An Integrative Model of Household Food Waste

Scholarly investigations into household food waste have advanced our knowledge of its determinants by focusing on food management behaviors (FMB) and by using the theory of planned behavior (TPB). Drawing on literature from environmental psychology, we created and tested a comprehensive framework that not only encompasses TPB and FMB, but also individual goals and values, which, we argue, can advance understanding of why people waste food. Using a two-wave survey design with a quasi-representative sample of the UK population (N = 1,336 participants), we tested our framework with Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). Broadly, results indicated support for our framework in that individual values were associated with short-term cognitions and participants’ goals, particularly the goal to behave responsibly, which were in turn associated with FMB and intentions; these, finally, were associated with self-reported food waste. Overall, our results indicate that food waste is the result of different cognitive and behavioral processes.