Consumer Behaviour Regarding Food Waste in Romania, Rural versus Urban

Abstract

Reducing food waste is an important objective in order to raise awareness of the negative effects it produces. The lack of information regarding the efficient use of food will affect the environment and the health of each of us. The objective of the paper is to present the behaviour of Romanian consumers regarding food waste. By means of a semi-structured questionnaire administered to 267 consumers, the following aspects were investigated: the place where they serve meals, the preparation of meals at home, purchase preferences, the motivation for food waste, and selective collection. Consumption typologies identify a higher share of food waste in urban areas and a better use of food in rural areas. The people from rural areas ate more than 50% of their meals at home. The preferred location for procuring food was, by far, the supermarket or hypermarket in both urban and rural environments. Young people throw away more waste than older food consumers. Awareness about food waste is more accentuated in young adults, without a significant correlation to the area of origin.

Keywords

• food waste
• consumers
• retailers
• behaviour
• rural
• urban