Public attitude to food waste: the case of Lithuania

ENThe purpose of the study is to investigate consumers’ perception concerning food wastage and their awareness of economic, social and environmental costs concerning the issue. The research focused on the concept of food waste in the context of consumers’ attitude regarding this problem. Comparative analysis, synthesis and evaluation of scientific literature and legal documents, statistical data collection and analysis were carried out together with elaboration of the results of an on-line survey of 500 households representing 1,494 inhabitants from all Lithuanian counties. The data were analysed using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS): descriptive statistics, frequencies, crosstabs. Lithuanians discard relatively small amounts of wholesome edible food in comparison with averages for the EU27, but most of them have a limited knowledge of the meaning of “best-before” dates. Also, consumers are strongly influenced by retail promotions, and wasting food for them is primarily associated with a waste of money. The state’s waste management policy is focused on waste sorting, while this research provides the evidence that households are insufficiently informed about economic, social and environmental costs concerning food waste. This underlines the necessity of reassessing the current state policy with an emphasis put on public education as an important factor in minimizing household food waste. Lithuanians realize that it is themselves as consumers who are mostly responsible for food waste, but food wasting is treated mainly as a financial loss. The added value of this article is the proposal to create information campaigns that will raise a sense of guilt for food squandering.