UC Davis

AbstractBackground: Food loss and waste is a huge problem worldwide when it comes to the environment, economy, and society. In the United States, food waste – food that is wasted at the retail and consumer level – is more of an issue than food losses that occur upstream in the food value chain. There are strategies to valorize waste, but the most impactful strategy would be preventing waste in the first place. In order to create more effective interventions to curb food waste, drivers for this behavior must be understood. There have been many papers that have examined household food waste, but there has been a lack of studies that specifically investigate university dining commons, which have large food waste reduction potential. Objectives: The goal of this research was to understand how dining common factors (e.g., serving style, food types served) and personal factors (e.g., frequency of eating at the dining commons, meal satisfaction) were related to amount of food waste diners produced. Methods: The main study took place at five different university dining commons during Spring and Fall 2019. After intercepting 736 diners near or inside the dining commons 296 produced complete, useable data. Participants scanned a QR code which led them to a Qualtrics survey that walked them through the process. Diners were asked to get their meal, take a photo of it, and then answer questions of what they selected, how it was portioned, and how confident they were going to like the dish before taking it. After eating their meal, they were asked to take another photo of what remained and answer questions of how satisfied they were with the meal, their role at the university, and their frequency of going to the dining commons. The photos were coded to provide estimates as to how much food was taken and wasted (taken – what was leftover). Free responses for what diners took were also coded into food type categories. All the variables were first analyzed using Multiple Correspondence Analysis, then multiple linear regression models were made to further investigate different factors’ effects on how much food was taken and wasted. Results: Certain food types (animal protein and mixed dishes), pre-plated dishes, dishes with more hedonic appeal, and consumer confidence in liking an item before taking it were all factors that were correlated to more food being taken. Different factors – increased meal satisfaction and frequency of visiting the dining commons – were correlated to less food being wasted. The amount of food that was taken was also a significant predictor for estimating food waste. Conclusions: This study highlighted some significant factors that were related to diners’ food choice and waste at five different universities. Finding relationships could help inform future studies design better interventions to reduce food waste at university dining commons.