Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to understand determinants of food waste through analysing patterns of practices including shopping, planning, consumption of leftovers and attitudes around best-before dates.

Design/methodology/approach

A survey and waste composition analysis of 142 households was conducted in the City of Toronto. Bivariate analyses and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) using a structural equation model were used to identify relationships between per capita food waste, household socio-demographic characteristics and household food practices.

Findings

Constructs related to planning practices and best-before date practices were identified through the CFA. Household size and the best-before construct were negatively correlated with per capita food waste. The planning construct had no correlation, which may be attributed to the influence of the retail environment in encouraging unplanned purchases. The best-before construct was significantly correlated with the presence of children in the home, an indicator of the compromises that parents make in domestic provisioning to ensure healthy foods for their children, such as more caution in handling items after their best-before dates.

Originality/value

This is the first study of its kind that uses directly measured per capita food waste from a waste composition study in a structural equation model with a construct related to best-before dates to determine drivers of food waste. It is also the first to find that children in the home can have an indirect influence on food waste through the household's best-before practices.

中文翻译：

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城市家庭食物垃圾：加拿大多伦多的驱动因素和做法

目的

本文的目的是通过分析包括购物，计划，剩余食物的消费以及对最佳日期的态度在内的实践模式来了解食物浪费的决定因素。

设计/方法/方法

多伦多市对142户家庭进行了调查和废物成分分析。使用结构方程模型进行的双变量分析和确认性因素分析（CFA）用于确定人均食物浪费，家庭社会人口统计学特征和家庭饮食习惯之间的关系。

发现

通过CFA确定了与计划惯例和最佳实施日期相关的构造。家庭规模和最佳建筑结构与人均食物浪费呈负相关。计划结构没有相关性，这可能归因于零售环境对鼓励计划外购买的影响。最好的构造与孩子在家中的存在显着相关，这是父母为确保孩子的健康食品而在家庭供应中做出妥协的指标，例如，在最好的日期之后处理物品时要格外小心。

创意/价值

这是此类研究中的第一项，它使用结构方程式模型中直接从废物成分研究中测得的人均食物垃圾，并使用与最佳日期相关的构造来确定食物垃圾的驱动因素。这也是第一个发现家庭中的孩子可以通过家庭的最佳实践对食物浪费产生间接影响的方法。