Patterns and Influencing Factors for Household Food Waste: Evidence from Greece

Food waste is one of our planet's most critical issues, as it is directly linked to food securi-ty, resource depletion, greenhouse gas emissions, and, more generally, environmental is-sues that require immediate solutions. This issue occurs at all stages of the food value chain; however, households are the main link in waste production. The present research aims to investigate the main factors that influence households' behaviors regarding food waste and how they can be utilized to develop sustainable practices to avoid environ-mental impacts. For this purpose, six research hypotheses were investigated, associated with consumers' knowledge of environmental and food waste issues, awareness con-cerning the community in which they live, emotions about their actions, and social and economic status issues. A structured questionnaire was addressed to a sample of 870 people in a Greek region to gather quantitative data that were analyzed through factor and path analyses. The results indicated that education and proper information on environ-mental issues, ways to reduce waste, and impacts on the environment and the economy significantly correlate to consumer behaviors in food waste.