FETE insights
Main project insights
Food Waste: From Excess to Enough
Intermediate project insights as well as example material and innovative ideas are available here for download.
Vision of new food system that caters for enough food for everyone with minimal waste
In the project, we developed a unified future vision to align the collective efforts. The vision presents a new food system that caters to enough food for everyone with minimal waste. A 3-minute video of the vision can be watched on the right side of this page. The vision is based on four key system principles:
1. Putting vitality first and governing the prevention of illness properly;
2. Embracing flexibility and highlighting the benefits that come with this;
3. Celebrating and valuing the food journey;
4. Using technology to learn about ourselves as individuals and as a society.
Retailers can stimulate consumers to purchase near-expired food
Retailers can stimulate consumers to be adaptable in their purchases, and purchase near-expired food, using messages about food waste avoidance, without resorting to discounts. The message used was “Save near-expired food! Join the fight against food waste!”. In four experiments with 1196 participants in total, we find that this message increases consumers’ willingness to purchase near-expired food, because it makes them feel good about themselves for helping save food from being wasted. We also find that consumers treat near-expired food differently at home than other food, to prevent waste.
Effectiveness of the tool package developed by the Netherlands Nutrition Centre
Findings show that the tool package developed by the Netherlands Nutrition Centre was able to diminish self-reported household food waste by 39.2% (first study) and 23.0% (second study). We also found that effects on waste-preventing behaviours are stronger when social norm elements are added in the intervention.