Food waste impacts the environment and the financial gains of foodservice establishments. Reducing it entails targeting the customers, as plate waste is the primary source of waste in these outlets. However, little is known about why some customers are more prone to not finishing their food. Furthermore, many of the measures proposed to curb plate waste can potentially generate a negative customer experience, yet no work has tried to ascertain whether diners actually disapprove of them. To investigate these issues, we surveyed 1,131 consumers in Italy. We tested the association between socio-demographic and attitudinal features and self-reported plate waste. We also measured their support for six contentious strategies for reducing food waste. Our results show that women, those who dine out more often, and those that are less aware of the social/environmental consequences of food waste tend to leave their plate unfinished more frequently. Additionally, although customers approve of doggy bags, information dissemination through awareness campaigns, and sales in last minute markets, they are resistant to portion size reduction without a corresponding price reduction, unsolicited advice on the quantity of food ordered, and limits on the number of options in the menu. Finally, support for the measures correlated strongly with awareness, and women complained significantly more about oversized portions. In addition to profiling out-of-home wasters and revealing which strategies do not affect customer experience, these results suggest the existence of a gender bias in portion size definition and underline how awareness campaigns can indirectly lead to reductions in food waste.

食物浪费会影响环境和餐饮服务机构的财务收益。减少它需要针对客户，因为盘子废物是这些网点的主要废物来源。然而，人们对为什么有些顾客更容易吃不完的食物知之甚少。此外，为遏制餐盘浪费而提出的许多措施可能会产生负面的客户体验，但没有任何工作试图确定食客是否真的不赞成这些措施。为了调查这些问题，我们调查了意大利的 1,131 名消费者。我们测试了社会人口统计学和态度特征与自我报告的盘子浪费之间的关联。我们还衡量了他们对六项有争议的减少食物浪费策略的支持。我们的研究结果表明，经常外出就餐的女性，而那些不太了解食物浪费的社会/环境后果的人往往更频繁地把盘子没吃完。此外，尽管客户认可狗袋、通过宣传活动传播信息以及在最后一刻市场销售，但他们拒绝减少份量而不相应降低价格、对订购的食物数量提出未经请求的建议，以及对食物数量的限制。菜单中的选项。最后，对这些措施的支持与意识密切相关，女性对超大份量的抱怨明显更多。除了分析户外垃圾并揭示哪些策略不会影响客户体验之外，