Amount and Causes of Food Waste in Households from Perspective of Consumers – the Case Study of the Czech Republic

Food waste occurs throughout the food distribution chain, with households, i.e., consumers, accounting for the largest share of total food waste. Different methods can be used to determine how much food people waste in their households, with widely varying results. Direct measurement methods prove to be the most accurate, but due to their financial, logistical, and time-consuming nature, they are not very common, and therefore questionnaires based on subjective estimates of respondents are very often used. This article presents the results of a study that aimed to quantify the amount of food wasted in Czech households through a more sophisticated questionnaire, to identify the most frequently wasted types of food and to explore why people waste food and, conversely, what motivates them to prevent food waste. The analysis is based on a representative sample of the Czech population (N = 815). The results showed that the average Czech consumer over 15 years old throws away 0.566 kg of food waste per week, which equates to 29.4 kg of food waste per year. Bakery products, ready to eat meals and fresh fruit were the types of food most frequently discarded. Regarding the reasons for wasting food, the main reason was unconsumable leftovers, e.g., scraps and parings, followed by rotten food, forgetting about the food, too much food is cooked, and expired eat-by-dates. On the contrary, the main motive for people not to waste food is clearly saving money