Estimates of Household Food Waste by Categories and Their Determinants: Evidence from China

The impact of dietary preference on household food waste: evidence from China

Food waste jeopardizes food security and causes economic and resource losses. Household food waste is the most significant source of global food waste and urgently needs to be reduced. Based on the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS), our study estimates the daily food waste data of 6,418 sample observations across China and the dietary preference scores of their household heads. Using a count regression model, our study explores the relationship between dietary preference and household food waste in Chinese households, and further explores the moderating function of household refrigerator use. The study has found that: (1) improving dietary preference score can significantly reduce household food waste ratio, and robustness tests support this finding. (2) There is a positive moderating effect of refrigerator use in the process of how dietary preference influence food waste. (3) Heterogeneity analysis shows that the impact of dietary preference on household food waste varies by gender and age of the household head, household size, economic level, urban-rural type, and north-south region. Our study provides evidence that improving dietary preference can reduce household food waste in China, which has certain implications for waste reduction in other developing countries.

Food waste in polish households - Characteristics and sociodemographic determinants on the phenomenon. Nationwide research

In Poland, to our best knowledge, none of the scientific publications produced to date have addressed the scale of wasted food in households and the impact of sociodemographic and economic factors on this. This study fills this research gap. The study was carried out in 2019 on a nationwide random-quota sample of 500 households, which are representative of all households. The survey was carried out in the respondents' homes for seven consecutive days. It consisted of an interview conducted by an interviewer (Computer-Assisted Personal Interviews method) and a paper diary completed by the respondents themselves. The aim of the study was to present the volume of wasted food, taking five groups into account,and to examine the impact of the sociodemographic and economic characteristics of the households and the person responsible for preparing meals on food waste. The results show that one person, on average, wasted 62.6 kg of edible food per year (98.2 kg of edible and inedible parts combined). According to the results, the most discarded food products include fruit and vegetables, bread, dairy products, drinks and juices, and cold cuts. Statistical analysis showed that the level of food waste in Polish households is conditioned by characteristics such as household size (persons), the presence and number of children, monthly income, as well as the characteristics of the person responsible for preparing meals, such as age and employment status.

Utilising standard samples instead of randomly collected food waste in composting: Implementation strategy and feasibility evaluation

Randomly collected food waste results in inaccurate experimental data with poor reproducibility for composting. This study investigated standard food waste samples as replacements for randomly collected food waste. A response surface methodology was utilised to analyse data from a 28-day compost process optimisation experiment using collected food waste, and the optimal combination of composting parameters was derived. Experiments using different standard food waste samples (high oil and salt, high oil and sugar, balanced diet, and vegetarian) were conducted for 28 days under optimal conditions. The ranking of differences between the standard samples and collected food waste was vegetarian > balanced diet > high oil and sugar > high oil and salt. Statistical analysis indicated t-tests for increased oil and salt samples and collected food waste were not significant, and Cohen's d effect values were minimal. High oil and salt samples can be used as replacements for collected food waste in composting experiments.