Save near-expired food: Does a message to avoid food waste affect food purchase and household waste prevention behaviors?
Yi Zhang, Erica van Herpen, Ellen J. Van Loo, Mario Pandelaere, Maggie Geuens
Abstract
Food waste, especially at the retail and consumer level, is a critical societal issue. Consumers' reluctance to purchase and consume near-expired food is a major contributor. Retailers have taken actions to promote near-expired food; however, it is unclear how their actions influence both purchase and consumption of near-expired food. This research examines one retail strategy aiming to reduce food waste—a message about food waste avoidance (without discounts). Specifically, four experiments (N = 1196) using various measurements of food waste prevention behaviors and one single-paper meta-analysis reveal that a message about food waste avoidance increases consumers’ willingness to buy near-expired food through increased moral satisfaction. After purchasing near-expired food, consumers engage in more waste prevention behaviors for it than for other food regardless of whether consumers encounter the food-waste-avoidance message. In addition, we find indications that increased moral satisfaction deriving from the food-waste-avoidance message motivates consumers to conduct more household waste prevention behaviors for the purchased near-expired food. Together, these findings suggest that a message about food waste avoidance can be a potentially effective strategy to reduce the waste of near-expired food. This research extends our understanding of the purchase and consumption of near-expired food and supports retail messages about food waste avoidance to sell near-expired food.