Thoughts on Food—Consumer Food Waste from an Interdisciplinary Perspective
A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Food".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 January 2025 | Viewed by 10816
Special Issue Editors
Interests: waste management; food waste; food security; environmental behavior; sustainable consumption
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: environmental management
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: food waste; food policy and governance; sustainable food production and consumption
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Since the FAO published its first report on "Global food losses and food waste" (Gustavsson et al., 2011), research on food waste has flourished. As final consumers (i.e., restaurants, catering services, hotels, households, etc.) have been identified as major contributors to food waste in developed countries (Stenmarck et al., 2016), the last decade (2010 to 2020) produced an impressive increase in the number of publications on this topic, especially at household’s (Giordano and Franco, 2021) but also on food waste at food service. Early research focused on quantifying the extent of the problem, followed by studies that reviewed different measurement methods and determinants through standardized questionnaires. However, to meet the ambitious target of 50% reduction in per capita food waste rates (SDG 12.3), we seem to lack a comprehensive understanding of how and why food waste is generated at the consumption stage. To achieve a broad understanding and design the appropriate policies, we need an international perspective that emphasizes the variety of approaches to understanding the individual, social and cultural causes of food waste (Elimelech et al., 2023) and, in particular, how food practices are created. In other words, studying consumer food waste in isolation from the contexts of food, culture, community and place may undermine our efforts to reach the sustainable development goals.
Therefore, the purpose of this Special Issue is to collect theoretical and empirical contributions that cross disciplinary boundaries, combine knowledge and methods from different disciplines and offer a new perspective on how and why consumer food waste is created and how it can be reduced. Articles based on experimental approaches and/or exploratory research are encouraged.
Elimelech, E., Mintz, K. K., Katz-Gerro, T., Segal-Klein, H., Hussein, L., and Ayalon, O. (2023). Between perceptions and practices: The religious and cultural aspects of food wastage in households. Appetite, 180, 106374.
Giordano, C., and Franco, S. (2021). Household food waste from an international perspective. Sustainability, 13(9), 5122.
Gustavsson, J., Cederberg, C., Sonesson, U., 2011. Global food losses and food waste: extent, causes and prevention. Rome Food Agric. Organ. United Nations FAO 37.
Stenmarck, A., Jensen, C., Quested, T., Moates, G., 2016. Estimates of European food waste levels. Report from FUSIONS Project. ISBN 978-91-88319-01-2. IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute, Stockholm.
Dr. Efrat Elimelech
Prof. Dr. Ofira Ayalon
Dr. Claudia Giordano
Guest Editors
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Keywords
- consumer food waste
- food service
- hotels
- household food waste
- food management
- food practices
- behaviour change
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