Capitalising on COVID-19 as a Trigger for Positive Change in Food Waste Behaviour

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Household food waste is an acknowledged societal problem, contributing to greenhouse gas production, food insecurity, and food price inflation. In the UK, household food waste makes up 70% of all post-farm-gate food waste and was recognized by the UK Government's Michael Gove: "Nobody wants to see good food go to waste. It harms our environment, it's bad for business - and it's morally indefensible.". Although there have been studies in the past to reduce food waste, the problem has largely remained intractable until the COVID-19 lockdown.The COVID-19 lockdown has been a big contextual change in people's daily lives. However, it has resulted in positive changes in food waste-related behaviours as indicated in the reports of the Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) and UK media. For example, UK consumers reported an increased awareness and willingness to minimise household food waste leading to a 34% reduction in food waste across 4 key products (bread, milk, potatoes, and chicken) compared to the average across 2018-2019. However, these changes may not last long with the ease of lockdown. Our research aims to harness the positive changes in food waste behaviour and investigate opportunities to sustain this change over the long term. Therefore, our project will (1) identify the factors that have affected food waste behaviours under lockdown, (2) develop, implement and evaluate interventions to support positive behaviour change, and (3) use our partnerships with WRAP and Zero Waste Scotland to disseminate the outcomes across the UK. The outcomes of this research will have positive social and economic impacts on UK food insecurity, consumers' cost savings, and food price inflation, as well as environmental impact on the amount of resources and inputs required and greenhouse gas generated, by not producing food that becomes waste