Matteo Vittuari

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...

Model selection and averaging in the assessment of the drivers of household food waste to reduce the probability of false positives

Food waste from households contributes the greatest proportion to total food waste in developed countries. Therefore, food waste reduction requires an understanding of the socio-economic (contextual and behavioural) factors that lead to its generation within the household. Addressing such a complex subject calls for sound methodological approaches that until now have been conditioned by the large number of factors involved in waste generation, by the lack of a recognised definition, and by limited available data. This work contributes to food waste generation literature by using one of the largest available datasets that includes data on the objective amount of avoidable household food waste, along with information on a series of socio-economic factors. In order to address one aspect of the complexity of the problem, machine learning algorithms (random forests and boruta) for variable selection integrated with linear modelling, model selection and averaging are implemented. Model selection addresses model structural uncertainty, which is not routinely considered in assessments of food waste in literature. The main drivers of food waste in the home selected in the most parsimonious models include household size, the presence of fussy eaters, employment status, home ownership status, and the local authority. Results, regardless of which variable set the models are run on, point toward large households as being a key target element for food waste reduction interventions.

Green Approaches to Enhancing Rural Communities in Romania: Case Studies from Maramureş and Sibiu Counties

The concept of development evolves following the transformations and new challenges communities have to face. In this framework, in the past twenty years, development discourse has covered questions about the interrelations among its different dimensions (economic, human, social, environmental, institutional), about the transition from linear to circular models, and about the role (and importance) of endogenous resources. This evolution has increased the attention given to local development strategies and their role in the promotion of sustainability and socio-economic growth by recognizing and reorganizing local resources.This article grounds the concept of territorial capital to Maramures County (Romania) with the aim of understanding its role and of assessing its potential as a driving force to guide local communities in the exploitation of endogenous resources. Through a comparative analysis of the case studies of the Tâvarna Mare Natura 2000 site (Sibiu County) and Oas Gutai (Maramures County), the work also aims to provide general insights to inform local development policies.The research is based on multiple research methods including secondary data analysis, a survey, and a set of interviews with local stakeholders and rural development experts, and it is developed through a comparative analysis between the case studies.

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.