Luca Falasconi

Italian consumers’ income and food waste behavior

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide insights on the relationships between consumers’ income and household food waste behaviors. Design/methodology/approach – Attitude toward food waste is a paradigmatic (economic) non-standard decision making. Based on behavioral economics concepts and empirical evidences, the study analyzes the frequency of household food waste and its main drivers with a focus on individual income. Through a panel of 1,403 Italian consumers, food waste behavior and its determinants are modeled for five food typologies using proportional odds models that adopt stepwise procedures and genetic algorithms. Findings – Results suggest the existence of complex relationships between per capita income and household food waste behavior. When considering food typologies that include high value added products, this relation can be explained by an inverse U-shaped curve: mid-to-low income consumers purchase higher amounts of lower quality products and waste more food. Research limitati...

Does packaging matter? Energy consumption of pre-packed salads

Purpose – Packed salads are popular in many countries of the world. The purpose of this paper is to assess the energy footprint of these products from farm gate to retail gate, compared with unpacked produces distributed by retailers and farmers’ markets in Italy. Design/methodology/approach – Life cycle assessment served as methodological background, even if the analysis was focused on direct and indirect energy consumption. Three supply chains were analysed: packed (P-S) and unpacked (U-S) sold in supermarkets, and unpacked produce sold locally (U-L). Energy inputs were accounted for processing, packaging, refrigeration, transport, and distribution. Data were collected from available literature and from interviews with key experts in the transformation, packaging, and retail sectors. Energy inputs were computed for 1 kg of finished edible product (kgp). Findings – Packed salads require an elevated energy input ranging from 16 to 37 MJ kgp−1. Input energy is mostly required for packaging and refrigeratio...

Preliminary results of a methodology for determining food waste in primary school canteens

Reducing food waste (FW) is seen as a way to improve sustainability of food systems, both in itself and as a way to improve the efficiency of resource use. A first step is to improve data collection of FW. The paper presents the results of a test conducted in a primary school located in the Bologna province. The aim of this study is to define a new methodology to assess FW in school canteens that can be applied in large-scale studies involving all stakeholders. The results show that a methodology for data gathering on FW in school canteens involving all the concerned actors can be implemented. However for the success of the monitoring it is necessary the involvement of teachers that remain the key to success, but also it is necessary to adapt the methodology to the capabilities of pupils.

Consumer approach to food waste: evidences from a large scale survey in Italy

In the EU 89 million tons of food are wasted every year, the largest fraction of which at the household level. Despite the key role of consumers in waste production, their approach to food waste has not been deeply analyzed so far. This paper aims at exploring the consumer attitude towards food waste, by analyzing the results of a survey held in two Italian cities in 2014, focused on the extent and reasons of the household food waste, and on consumers’ perception of effects and possible remedies to food waste. The results highlighted a general awareness of the effects of food waste, although the perception of such effects was more developed when they directly concerned the consumers. The main reasons of food waste declared by the respondents were the mismanagement of expiration dates, over-purchase, over-cooking, and a lack of knowledge about how to reuse the leftovers. A cluster analysis was conducted to identify consumer profiles with a similar approach to food waste. Such profiles were then analyzed across the two samples in order to check for possible overlapping, which could lead to a careful generalization of the results. Namely, we found 4 consumer profiles, named as “careful”, “virtuous”, “aware” and “unconcerned”, in both the samples analysed. Despite the many limitations of this very first analysis on household food waste, some interesting insights emerge, which might be usefully deepened in order to design effective strategies against food waste.

Virtual Water in Diet, Shopping and Food Waste

Food is the central pillar for the life of humankind; food is also an important element of our history and culture. In addition, food is an essential part of the environment and the places it originates from. Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach, a German philosopher, in one of his famous aphorism, expressed the idea that “We are what we eat”. If this concept is to be still considered valid, this means that the path we are undertaking is rather dramatic. In order to demonstrate that, it will be sufficient to articulate just a couple of considerations. The first is that, in Europe, 43 % of food waste is domestic waste. The second is that food is gradually becoming simply a commodity, that is, a good which must be traded at the lowest price, losing not only its economic value but also its nutritional, cultural, social and historical values.