Convenience products - a solution for household food waste?

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Convenience products - a solution for household

food waste?

The influence of convenience food on household food waste

taking into account time pressure and cooking skills

Janina Märkle

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Convenience products - a solution for household

food waste?

The influence of convenience food on household food waste

taking into account time pressure and cooking skills

University of Groningen

Faculty of Economic and Business

MSc Marketing Management

Master Thesis

11th January 2016

First supervisor: dr. J. (Jenny) van Doorn

Second supervisor: prof. dr. ir. K. (Koert) van Ittersum

Janina Märkle

Coehoornsingel 27a

9711BM Groningen

Email: j.s.markle@student.rug.nl

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I

Abstract

Using a field experiment this study investigates the effects of convenience food products as well as participants’ cooking skills and perceived time pressure on the amount of their generated household food waste during a period of 10 days. More precisely, this research is the first one to investigate the effect of convenience food products on the generated amount of household food waste, in direct comparison to their conventional counterparts. Additionally, the influence of participants’ cooking skills and time pressure on this effect is assessed. Data was collected with the help of a food waste diary and a questionnaire. The results show that convenience food usage decreases the amount of household food waste in comparison to the non-convenient counterparts, whereas time pressure as well as cooking skills are found to show no significant results.

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Management Summary

An increased attention is being given to the topic of food waste by consumers’ as well as governments’ as the concerns regarding the consequences of this behaviour are rising.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations states in its report, that one third of the edible parts of produced food determined for human consumption is lost or wasted globally, equalling 1.3 billion tons annually worldwide (Gustavsson, Cederberg & Sonesson, 2012). Further, academic and professional literature suggest, that within the food supply chain consumers can be mainly held responsible for the high amounts of disposed food (Griffin, Sobal & Lyson, 2009), as in categories like fruit and vegetable products consumers are responsible for up to 30% and within dairy products for even up to 65% of the wasted products (Gustavsson et al., 2012).

These numbers show, that food waste is a global problem which needs to be addressed and solved. However, little insight is provided by academic literature at this moment regarding the influencing factors of consumers’ waste behaviour.

Nevertheless, academic research already suggests that time pressure (Evans, 2011) as well as a lack of cooking skills (Lyndhurst, Cox and Downing, 2007) can, among other reasons, be held responsible for household food waste. Additionally, it was found that convenience products show an increasing presence within the food market and their appealing product characteristics such as time- and energy- savings could decrease household food waste (Buckley, Cowan & McCarthy, 2007; Brunner, van der Horst & Siegrist, 2010).

Therefore, this study focuses on the question if convenience food usage leads to less household food waste when compared to their non-convenient counterparts. Additionally, the influencing effects of cooking skills and time pressure were assessed.

A field experiment was conducted providing the participants with food packages entailing either convenience or conventional products. Data collection was undertaken by two different means; a food waste diary and a questionnaire, allowing to obtain additional background information regarding the participants. Within the food waste diary, participants were asked to record, for a period of 10 days, their amounts of used and wasted products from the received food package. Additionally, they were asked to collect their waste and unused products and return these once the 10 days had passed. The collected waste was weighted, recorded and used for the analysis.

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III

are in line with the expectations. Nevertheless, contrasting with the reviewed academic literature, an influence of time pressure as well as cooking skills on the effect between convenience food usage and household food waste could not be proven within this research.

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Preface

Now that I have almost reached the end of my student life, this Master thesis is the final component of my academic education and marks the end of my Master studies at the University of Groningen.

Writing this thesis and in particular designing and conducting the field research has for me been the greatest academic challenge so far. Within the last months I experienced both, ups and downs entailing moments of proudness and excitement but also feelings of doubts and uncertainty.

Therefore, I would like to take the chance to thank everybody who has helped me to finalize this project and without whom I could not have mastered this academic challenge.

Firstly, I would like to thank my supervisor Dr. Jenny van Doorn for her guidance in the process of writing this thesis and her valuable support throughout the whole time, as well as, Professor Dr. Koert van Ittersum for his constructive feedback and helpful input regarding the conduction of our research.

At this point I also want to thank the members of my master group - Leonie, Justin and Rutger - for the good cooperation throughout our whole period of study, the mutual support and the valuable discussions and exchanges.

Moreover, a big thank you has to be expressed to the Albert Heijn of Paterswolde and its employees for their support as well as to all the study participants who have helped us conduct our study and especially to those who were willing to collect their food waste for us during a period of 10 days.

In particular, I would like to thank my family, my boyfriend and my friends for their support, their encouragement, their valuable input and motivating words throughout the whole process of creating my thesis.

Finally, I would like to thank my friend Cora, a master student herself, for our walks, sport lessons and coffee breaks which were a welcomed change from writing this thesis and a source of motivation.

Groningen, 11th January 2016

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List of Figures

Figure 1: Conceptual Model ... p.16 Figure 2: Comparison amounts of food waste in gram ... p.44

List of Tables

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1. Introduction

“I recognize the right and duty of this generation to develop and use the nature resources of our land; but I do not recognize the right to waste them, or to rob, through wasteful use, the generations that come after us”

- Theodore Roosevelt

Food is an essential component to our everyday life. It does not only provide the nutrition and energy we need during the day but it is also at heart of most of our social interactions and nourishes our sense of identity (Darnton et al., 2009). Nevertheless, against this backdrop, we purchase, prepare, consume and particularly waste a large part of our food every day (Quested, Mars, Stunell & Parry, 2013).

Therefore, food waste has become a topic of growing public interest increasing in particular consumers’ as well as governments’ concerns regarding the consequences of this behaviour; in particular regarding its negative impacts on for example the environment or the economy: This behaviour represents a waste of resources used in the food production such as lands, energy, water, labour and agricultural chemicals (e.g. fertilizers) (Buzby, Wells & Hyman, 2014; Gustavssonet al., 2012). Moreover, pointless CO2 emissions are caused by the production of food, which will not be consumed (Gustavsson et al., 2012). Additionally, this behaviour implies a loss of economic value of the produced food products (Gustavsson et al., 2012). Therefore, avoidable food waste represents not only wastage of natural resources but also a monetary wastage (Koivupuro et al., 2012).

Food losses can occur during the post-harvest or production phase as well as on consumer or retailer level (Parfitt, Barthel & Macnaughton, 2010). About one third of the edible parts of produced food, determined for human consumption, is lost or wasted globally, equalling 1.3 billion tons per year (Gustavsson et al., 2012). This implies that food products are thrown away even if they are still appropriate for human consumption (Gustavsson et al., 2012).

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When focusing on Europe, the disposed food adds up to more than 100 million tonnes annually and could even raise to more than 120 million tonnes by the year 2020 if no actions are taken (European Commission, 2015).

Literature suggests that consumers can mainly be held responsible for the large amounts of wasted food (Griffin, et al., 2009) since in categories like fruit and vegetable products households are responsible for up to 30% and within dairy products for even up to 65% of the discarded products (Gustavsson et al., 2012).

It is evident that food waste is a comprehensive and global issue, which needs to be addressed and solved. However, current academic research provides only little insight regarding the factors that influence consumers’ food disposal behaviour. Several studies attempted to detect e.g. which food categories are most susceptible of being wasted (Quested & Johnsin 2009) or how consumers feel about their food disposal behaviour (Evans, 2011; Lyndhurst et al.,2007), however, the drivers for these food waste behaviours remain scarcely researched. Therefore extensive research from a consumer behaviour perspective is needed in order to gain more insight into the process turning edible food products into waste.

It is suggested by the here- reviewed literature that the most common causes resulting in wastage of former edible food are over purchase due to e.g. “buy one get one free offers”, households’ cooking or serving too big portions, time constraints regarding food preparation as well as a lack of knowledge on consumer level regarding e.g. their contribution to food waste (European Commission, 2015; Evans, 2011; Godbey, Reid & Robinson, 1998; Koivapuro et al., 2012). However, the disposal of food can be determined as the last step within the food provisioning process and thus numerous possibilities, which could have prevented food wastage have at this moment already passed, as the disposal related actions and decisions had been made in the past (Stefan, van Herpen, Tudoran & Laheteenmäki, 2013; Quested, et al. 2013). Additionally, Evans (2011) concludes that the reasons for food waste can largely be found in the dynamics of everyday life, such as longer working hours and more working mothers, social contacts and changing household structures (Buckley et al., 2007; Evans, 2011). Hence, time constraints or the feeling of having time constraints and time pressure can also be held responsible for an increase in household food waste (Buchli & Lucas, 2001; Godbey et al., 1998; Evans, 2012)

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consumer to simplify food related activities. Despite the fact that, an increased interest in convenience products can be noted within academic research, there is no common definition for this product category and the term convenience food is used for a large amount of different items varying from highly processed food products such as instant pasta, to single components such as canned or frozen vegetables (Brunner et al., 2010). Nevertheless, most researchers agree that convenience products allow time and energy savings during the purchase, preparation, consumption and clean-up of the food (Brunner et al., 2010; Möser, 2010). Further, Buckley and colleagues (2005) state that consumers relate convenience to more than just the time spent in the kitchen covering also the time, mental and physical efforts needed to buy, store, and prepare meals as well as their consumption (Buckley, Cowan, McCarthy, O’Sullivan, 2005).

Especially, changing consumer lifestyles and technological innovations such as the microwave as well as new family structures and changes in social norms and values are considered as being responsible for an increased demand of convenience products (Buckley et al., 2007; De Boer, McCarthy, Cowan & Ryan, 2004). It is suggested that the same reasons causing households to opt for convenience products are also responsible for an increased amount of household food waste such as time constraints or a lack of cooking skills (Beck, 2007; Brunner et al., 2010; Evans, 2012). Therefore the question arises if convenience food products could be one key to this thorny issue of food waste.

This thesis aims to address this question and in particular to provide an answer to:

Do convenience food products reduce the amount of household food waste?

Additionally, time scarcity and time pressure can be seen as major contributors to the amount of wasted food by a household. Evans (2011), states that a lot of food is wasted when households do not have enough time for food preparation as in these cases they replace products requiring more time from them for e.g. preparation by products needing less time for the preparation, leading to the wastage of the former ones (Evans 2011).

As one main characteristic of convenience products is time saving while reducing the effort during e.g. preparation and consumption (Brunner et al., 2010; Scholderer & Grunert, 2005) these products are perceived as a good way for households to alleviate time pressure (Mc Kenzie in Buckley et al., 2007). Therefore, convenience food products could allow households encountering time scarcity or time pressure in their lives to reduce their amount of household food waste.

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Do convenience food products reduce the amount of household food waste when time pressure is high?

Scholars agree that cooking, preparing and serving too much food are further reasons contributing largely to households’ food waste (Exodus 2007; Quested et al., 2013). Moreover, Lyndhurst (2007) states that especially people having less advanced cooking skills and food management knowledge cause higher amounts of food waste (Lyndhurst et al., 2007). Therefore a lack of cooking skills withholds people from preparing a meal from scratch, cooking the right quantity or improving a meal with ingredients left in their fridge, all leading to food wastage (Brunner et al., 2010; Evans 2012; Koivupuro et al. 2012). Beck (2007) states that convenience products require fewer cooking skills for the preparation allowing even people with lower cooking skills to prepare a meal. Hence, convenience food products could be helpful in reducing the waste among households’ with lower food preparation skills. Therefore, the third research question of this study is:

Do convenience food products reduce the amount of household food waste when cooking skills are high?

Hence, the aim of this study is to extend the existing literature by providing more insight into the influence of virtue convenience food on the amount of disposed food as well as a deeper understanding for the reasons leading to consumers’ food waste behaviour.

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2. Literature Review

2.1 Household Food Waste

Food losses can occur at every stage of the food supply chain, the production or post-harvest phase as well as on consumer or retailer level. The losses occurring at the end of the supply chain, at retailer or consumer level are called “food waste” (Parfitt et al., 2010). This research will focus on this final part in the food supply chain and investigate the reasons for households’ food waste1_{as a consequence of consumer behaviour.}

Gustavsson and colleagues (2011) state, that food waste is only measured for those products which are determined for human consumption and therefore exclude animal nutrition and non-edible product parts (Gustavsson et al., 2011). Hence, food waste can be measured as the discrepancy between the amount of available food for consumption and the amount, which is wasted at the end of its lifecycle (Griffin et al. 2009). Additionally, according to Quested and Johnson (2009), household food waste can be categorized within three groups; avoidable, possibly avoidable and unavoidable food waste: Avoidable food waste refers to products that were still edible when thrown away (e.g. slice of bread or meat). The second group contains those products only eaten by some persons (e.g. bread crusts) as well as those that could be eaten when prepared in a certain way (e.g. potato skins), meaning that their wastage is possibly avoidable. Finally, unavoidable food waste includes the waste occurring during the food preparation phase; waste which is not edible under normal circumstances such as eggshells or pineapple skin (Quested & Johnson, 2009).

Researchers found, that within the food supply chain consumers’ can be identified as major contributors to food waste, as households produce more food waste than for example the grocery retail stores or the manufacturers (Griffin et al. 2009, Quested & Johnson 2009). In the Netherlands, the Dutch consumers throw away food with an approximate value of 2.5 billion € per year. This is equivalent to 340€ per household and 150€ per person. Comparatively, 2 billion € are discarded by food manufactures and supermarkets every year (Gouvernment of the Netherlands, 2013; Ministry of Economic Affairs 2014). However, in the UK the amount is even higher, with an average family wasting food equalling 480£ per year (Quested & Johnson 2009).

1

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Finally, consumer food waste can take place during the acquisition, the preparation as well as during the consumption stage of food (Griffin et al. 2009). According to Evans, household food waste is a consequences of the ways in which household practices are “socially and materially” organized (Evans, 2012, p.42). Therefore, food waste should not be analysed as a single behaviour but as the result of multiple behaviours increasing the likely amount of food that is wasted. Hence, the disposal of food is the final step within the food chain and at the moment an item is discarded the chance to prevent this product of being wasted has usually passed, as the actions and decisions leading to the wastage had been made earlier (Stefan et al., 2013; Quested, et al. 2013).

2.1.1 Reasons for household food waste

Current research revealed several reasons for household food waste such as the purchase behaviour of consumers, a lack of time and cooking skills, consumers’ wish for taste variety, their change in or lack of plans as well as the failure to follow a shopping list (Evans, 2012; Graham-Rowe, Jessop & Sparks, 2014; Lyndhurst et al., 2007; Williams, Wikström, Otterbring, Löfgen & Gustafsson, 2012).

Evans (2012), found that especially over purchasing contributes to a large amount of household food waste as every household routinely purchases more food products than needed and hence wastes the majority of the bought surplus (Evans, 2012). The reasons for over purchasing can be explained by various consumer behaviours, such as, consumers’ shopping routines, households’ negligence of planning meals in advance and of controlling their quantities of food before grocery shopping. (Chandon & Wansink, 2006; Evans, 2012; Maubach, Hoek & Mc Creanor, 2009; Stefan et al., 2013; Quested, et al. 2013). Additionally, Graham-Rowe and colleagues found that especially the wish of being a “good provider” and of fulfilling all the expectations of family and friends can be seen as a strong predictor for food over purchase (Graham-Rowe et al. 2014 p. 19).

However, reasons for over purchasing can also be found externally and thus within the retailer and food manufacturers, due to the availability of certain products only in large quantities or due to the price differences between small and large packaging encouraging consumers’ to buy more than needed in order to save money (Evans 2011, 2012; Graham-Rowe et al., 2014; Lyndhurst, 2008).

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Additionally, consumers experience a great anxiety regarding food safety; especially concerning fresh products, leading to the immediate disposal of items passed its best before date (Evans 2011; Evans, 2012; Exodus 2007). The fear that these items potentially cause sickness wins out over people’s concerns of wasting food and thus the imperative that unsafe food cannot be eaten justifies the disposal of these products (Evans 2011).

Moreover, a lack of awareness regarding the individual contribution to food waste can be detected within a large amount of households (Graham-Rowe et al. 2014; Lyndhurst et al.,2007; Quested, Parry, Eastel & Swannel, 2011). Especially the belief that food waste is not a problem as food is biodegradable and the conviction that sustainable behaviour within other areas excuses food wastage, as well as the belief that producing food waste can be seen as a socially accepted norm increases the amount of wasted food (Graham-Rowe et al. 2014).

However, this does not mean that consumers are indifferent to the food they waste as most consumers feel bad and guilty when throwing away good food (Evans, 2011, 2012). Lyndhurst (2007) revealed that consumers share three main concerns when disposing food: first, a waste of money, second a waste of good food and third the feeling of guilt (Lyndhurst et al., 2007). Especially, the desire to not waste money has been identified by other studies as a major concern of household’s food disposal behaviour (Graham-Rowe et al. 2014).

These findings explain the “two stage holding process” (Hetherington, 2004, p.196) of consumers, showing that food is usually not directly thrown out but most of the time moved to another place, such as the fridge, to keep the possibility of consuming it in the near future. Finally, it is only thrown away once it has become completely inedible (Evans, 2012; Hetherington, 2004). Therefore, it can be concluded that most households do not waste food carefree. Despite everything, consumers’ intentions to waste less food do generally not translate into behavioural changes, as revealed by the study of Stefan and colleagues, and hence do not decrease the amount of household food waste (Stefan et al., 2013).

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the clean-up as well as the consumption of food (Brunner et al., 2010). On the other hand convenience products are made available in different quantities allowing the purchase of smaller packages and hence may lead to less food waste (Evans, 2011). These product characteristics are especially interesting as a lack of time and cooking skills have been identified as crucial contributors to household food waste (Buchli & Lucas, 2001; Godbey et al., 1998; Evans, 2011; Evans, 2012; Graham-Rowe et al., 2014; Koivupuro et al., 2012).

However, the link between convenience food usage and food waste has so far not been researched within the literature and hence a connection cannot be assumed. Therefore, this relationship will be elaborated on within this paper and the next section will thus provide more insight into the use and the advantages of convenience food products.

2.2 Convenience Food

Changing consumer lifestyles, technological innovations, new household and family structures as well as a change in social norms and values have created new consumer demands towards all different types of consumer goods. This phenomenon can also be observed in the food industry by an increased demand for convenience food products (Buckley et al., 2007; De Boer et al., 2004).

Swoboda and Morschett (2001) define convenience as being relevant to characteristics inherent in the product itself, as the easy purchase and preparation of a product as well as products that are generally available in different and small quantities (Swoboda & Morschett, 2001). Therefore, convenience implies that something can be accomplished with reduced effort and in the food sector, it usually also indicates that some part of the consumers’ effort is reduced or even fully eliminated (Scholderer & Grunert, 2005). Hence, convenience food can be seen as products that save time and effort within the preparation of a meal, the consumption as well as the clean-up (Brunner et al., 2010). Additionally, Capps and colleagues (1985) state that convenience products are

“any fully or partially prepared food in which significant preparation time, culinary skills, or energy inputs have been transferred from the homemaker’s kitchen to the food processor and distributor” (Capps, Tedford & Havlicek, 1985 p. 864). Altogether,

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convenience is regarding the timing of convenience. This includes the different consumption stages at which convenience can be obtained, e.g. purchasing, preparation, consumption and cleaning up (Darian &Cohen, 1995).

Furthermore, a convenience orientation can be described as a consumer’s positive attitude towards the possibility of time and energy savings during a household’s meal preparation. Convenience oriented consumers are even willing to pay extra for the sought convenience (Brunner et al., 2010; Scholderer & Grunert, 2005). However, Buckley and colleagues (2005) determined that consumers relate convenience to more than just the time spent in the kitchen. For them convenience covers time as well as the mental and physical efforts needed to buy, store, prepare meals and consume food (Buckley et al., 2005). Additionally, the consumption convenience of a product can be made accountable to contribute to up to 48% of impulsively consumed food (Wansink, 1994). This finding is in line with a later study of Wansink (2004a) stating that the effort people need to summon in order to obtain food is a good predictor of which food people will prefer and how much of it they will consume (Wansink, 2004 a). Hence, when effort increases consumption decrease. Concluding from this, consumers are more likely to consume convenience products, as the convenience factor increases the number of possible occasions the product can be consumed. (Wansink, 2004 b; Chandon & Wansink, 2002).The convenience of a product can be influenced for example by the packaging meaning that individually wrapped goods are more convenient for the consumer as they do not require using, storing or trashing the remains (Chandon & Wansink, 2002).

However, it needs to be mentioned that consumers using convenience products perceive the usage and consumption as a gain as well as a loss. The positive factors are related to the aspect of convenience whereas the negative factors are often related to the health aspects of convenience food as well as to feelings of guilt, regret and the perception of neglecting one’s duties such as preparing proper meals for the family (Costa, Schoolmeester, Dekker & Jongen, 2007). Especially women appear to have ambivalent feelings towards convenience food, due to the negative connotations associated with convenience food usage and due to their wish to prepare proper meals for their relatives (Carrigan, Szmigin & Leek, 2006). The following section will give more insight into consumers’ drivers and the barriers of using convenience products.

2.2.1 Drivers and barriers of convenience consumption

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convenience consumption include for example changing household structures e.g. more single households, an increase of female participation in the labour market and a rise of working hours, a decline in consumers cooking skills, the desire of healthy eating as well as changing consumer values towards individualism and self-fulfilment, being in contrast with traditions like family meals or spending a lot of time cooking (Buckley et al., 2007, Brunner et al., 2010, Scholderer & Grunert, 2005).

Candel (2001) revealed that households working more than 30 hours per week are more convenience oriented than those working less than 9 hours per week (Candel 2001). Although, the opposite was found by different research stating that working full time decreases the convenience consumption (Brunner et al., 2010). Moreover, age, gender and education level were found to be strong predictors for convenience usage. Older consumers, women as well as less educated people consume less convenience food products compared to younger consumers, men and better-educated ones. (Bugge et al., 2008 cited in Olsen, Menichelli, Oddvin & Naes, 2012; Brunner et al., 2010). Furthermore, having children and the household size were found to reduce the convenience consumption, meaning that the larger the household size the less frequent the convenience consumption (Brunner et al., 2010).

An interesting finding of the study by Buckley and colleagues, related to this research, is that more participants want to avoid waste the higher their convenience consumption (Buckley et al., 2007). However, conversely trying to avoid waste is also a barrier for a convenience consumption as it was also found by other researchers that the wish to waste less, reduces convenience consumption (Brunner et al., 2010)

Additionally, in line with the findings of Beck (2007) stating that convenience products require fewer cooking skills from the consumers, high cooking skills have been found to reduce convenience consumption of a household (Beck, 2007; Brunner et al., 2010). Therefore, low cooking skills can be seen as a driver, whereas high cooking skills present a barrier for convenience consumption.

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However, besides the drivers and barriers of convenience consumption and people’s ambivalent feelings towards these products, Carrigan and colleagues (2006) revealed that the attitudes towards convenience food and its potential advantages vary among consumers and convenience food has been integrated into today’s daily life showing that anybody makes use of these food products from time to time (Carrigan et al., 2006).

To summarize, the above-presented findings are closely related to this research suggesting that convenience increases the consumption of products and hence would lead to less wastage. The hypotheses section of this research will allow elaborating further on this assumption especially in combination with the aspects of cooking skills and time pressure presented below.

2.3 Cooking Skills

In the last century, compulsory modules at school taught pupils cooking and food management skills. In today’s society however mothers are reported as the major source for learning about basic cooking skills (Caraher, Dixon, Lang & Carr-Hill, 1999; Lang &Caraher, 2001). Short (2003) defines cooking skills as the mechanical or physical techniques used in food preparation (Short, 2003). However, due to the increasing availability of ready to eat meals and convenience products, Lang and Caraher (2001) suggest that the definition of cooking skills should be refined and thus include also the re-heating or usage of microwaves and the meal preparation of different pre-prepared food items (Lang &Caraher, 2001).

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convenience food really is the reasons for a decline in cooking skills or if these two phenomenon only coincidence with each other (Hartman et al., 2013, Scholderer & Grunert, 2005).

However, Hartmann, Dohle and Siegrist (2013) found in their study a negative relationship between consumers cooking skills and their convenience consumption, meaning that high cooking skills reduce the consumption frequency of such products (Hartmann, Dohle & Siegrist, 2013). Yet, cooking skills alone do not guarantee the preparation of a meal from raw and elementary ingredients as a lot of people simply lack the ideas, knowledge as well as the menu-planning expertise to be able to organize and prepare food (Caraher et al., 1999).

This is in line with the findings of Buckley and colleagues (2007) stating that a lot of people perceive their cooking skills as not sufficient enough in order to prepare a meal (Buckley et al., 2007). The “cooks” limited confidence can be explained by facts such as that those persons have generally not participated in meal preparation as children or that their general exposure to cooking skills has been limited (Bava, Jaeger & Park., 2008). Additionally, Evans (2012) reveals that a lot of his study participants are not able to improve a meal using ingredients left in their fridge, meaning that the food will necessarily be wasted (Evans, 2012). Hence, poor cooking skills are perceived as a reason of increasing amounts of household food waste (Lyndhurst et al., 2007).

Finally, it needs to be mentioned, that some authors believe, that there is a revision of domestic cooking skills meaning that cooking is increasingly perceived as a recreational activity in addition to the image of a demanded daily duty (Lang &Caraher, 2001). This development may lead to the fact that people who see cooking as their hobby will spend more time preparing and cooking their meals and thus also improve their cooking skills. Better skills and more time spent cooking are suspected to decrease the households’ food waste. This relationship will be elaborated on in the hypotheses section of this research. However, as time is an essential component within food related activities (Marshall 1995) and increased feelings of time pressure can be identified within today’s society (Jacobs & Gerson, 2004) the next section will elaborate further on the reasons and consequences of time pressure concerning food waste.

2.4 Time pressure

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crunch and refers to the perception or the sentiment of people not possessing enough time to do everything they want or need to during the day (Godbey et al., 1998). Buckley and colleagues (2007) relate “time pressure to the extent to which individuals perceive that

there is a burden on available time resources” (Buckley et al., 2007, p. 604). The feeling

of time scarcity is due to, or can be referred to the increased frequency of employed parents, longer working days or the increasing pressure for more productivity at work by increasing the speed of task completion (Godbey et al., 1998; Jabs and Devine, 2006).Researchers detected, that people nowadays feel more time pressured than in the past years and have the feeling of possessing less time for their spare time activities (Jacobs & Gerson, 2004). Therefore, they want to distribute their time to the numerous daily tasks as efficiently as possible (Elchardus 1990 cited in Daniels, Glorieux, Minnen & Tienoven, 2012).

One of the main daily tasks entails food related activities such as the purchase, the storage, the meal preparation and the clean-up after consumption (Marshall 1995). Although, the time people dedicate to these activities varies, Hamrick and colleagues (2011) found that an average American spends currently about 33 minutes per day for meal preparation and clean-up and that women spend on average more time on food preparation than men with 47 minutes versus 18 minutes (Hamrick, Andrews, Guthrie, Hopkins & Mc Clelland, 2011). Additionally, Brunner et al., (2010) found in their study that their participants cooked on average 1 hour per day varying from no cooking at all to cooking up to 3 hours or more within the day (Brunner et al., 2010). Moreover, it can be observed, that people generally spend more time cooking during the weekend, especially on Sundays, than during the week, as the meals are often seen as socially more important during the weekends (Kaufmann, 2010; Möser, 2010).

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purchased at a drive-through (Jabs and Devine, 2006).Therefore, the perceived time people have, strongly influences their food choices and the food industry has properly responded to peoples’ wish to spend less time preparing a meal by offering for example convenience food (Möser, 2010) allowing the consumer to save time concerning the preparation, consumption and clean-up (Candel, 2001).

However, personal characteristics as well as households’ time resource distribution have a high influence on the time assigned to meal preparation (Möser, 2010). Daniels and Colleagues (2012) found that the employment status of a person influences the time spend cooking, leading to more time allocated to meal preparation by non-workers than by part- or full- time employed ones (Daniels et al., 2012). This is in line with the findings of Möser (2010), stating that full- or part-time working mothers invest less time for meal preparations and are more susceptible buying pre-packaged meals than the non-working ones (Möser, 2010). Additionally, people with higher education generally have higher incomes making it more valuable for them to work more and thus also to substitute their time for money meaning that those households will spend less time on meal preparation and more on out of home consumption as well as on the purchase of more expensive convenience products to substitute the time needed for home cooked meals (Anxo & Carlin, 2004; Mc Cracken & Brandt, 1987; Möser, 2010). Further, the family situation influences peoples’ food preparation; couples with children feel generally more forced to prepare food as it is a way of caring for their families as opposed to households living alone, who will therefore dedicate less time to these activities (Daniels et al., 2012).

Finally, it can be stated, that time pressure or time constraints are found to reduce the time dedicated to food preparation as well as peoples cooking experiences (Daniels et al., 2012; Möser, 2010).

2.5 Conceptual Model

The above-discussed literature is the foundation to this research as well as to the established conceptual model and its corresponding hypotheses.

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households wishing to avoid food waste have a higher convenience consumption (Buckley et al., 2007; Brunner et al., 2010).

Central to this research is therefore the investigation if people who use convenience food products waste less, than those who use conventional food products. Within this research the assumption is made that convenience product usage will lead to less food waste when being compared to the usage of their non-convenient counterparts. This expectation is due to the appealing product characteristics of convenience items, e.g. time and energy savings appearing to be an answer to a vast majority of the earlier-mentioned food disposal reasons (De Boer et al., 2004; Brunner et al., 2010).

Moreover, two variables will be included into the research that reviewed literature depicts as influential regarding households’ food disposal behaviour, namely cooking skills and time pressure.

Cooking skills are included in this research, as literature suggests that a lack of cooking skills has been determined to be responsible for the creation of large amounts of household food waste (Brunner et al., 2010; Evans, 2011; Evans 2012; Graham-Rowe et al., 2014; Koivupuro et al. 2012). However, academic research so far has not investigated the effect of poor cooking skills and the use of convenience products on the amount of disposed food. The assumption can be made that, as convenience products require less cooking knowledge, they help especially households with low cooking skills reduce their amount of disposed food (Beck, 2007). Hence, conversely this research is expecting that this effect is weaker for good cooks meaning that for these people it will not make a difference in their waste behaviour if they consume convenient or non-convenient products.

Additionally, time pressure has been included as several studies revealed, that having time pressure or the perception of having time pressure is a large contributor to household food waste (Buchli & Lucas, 2001; Godbey et al., 1998; Evans 2011; Evans 2012). As convenience food products are time savers the assumption is made that time scarce households will waste less convenience products than their non-convenient counterparts (Brunner et al., 2010).

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as those products reduce, due to their convenience, people’s enjoyment in the task of cooking itself (Candel, 2001; Costa et al., 2007; Hartmann et al., 2013).

In addition, the variables age, gender, level of education, net income, having children, employment status as well as the working hours are included as control variables as they are found to influence the amount of household food waste (Evans, 2011; Evans, 2012; Koivupuro et al., 2012 Lyndhurst et al., 2007; Parfitt et al., 2010

Based on these assumptions, the following conceptual model has been established. In the following paragraphs the relationships depicted in the conceptual model will be discussed in more detail.

Figure 1: Conceptual Model of the research

2.6 Hypotheses

2.6.1 The effect of convenience products on the amount of food waste

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food in a convenient way with time restrictions in mind are all barriers to minimise households’ food waste (Graham Rowe et al., 2014).

Convenience food products can offer solutions to these constraints as they require fewer cooking skills, reduce the input needed from the consumer by saving time as well as physical and mental energy during the preparation, the consumption and the clean-up of food (Brunner et al., 2010; Beck 2007). Further, those products are made available in smaller packaging formats, allowing consumers to only purchase and cook the quantities needed (Buckley et al., 2005; Swoboda & Morschett, 2001). This also leads to e.g. less overcooking as well as meal leftovers and hence reduces the amount of wasted food.

Consequentially, as the consumption of convenience food is easy and does not require a lot of effort, consumers will generally prefer such products and will consume more of these, as convenience is a characteristic, which is increasingly important to them (Brunner et al., 2010; Levitsky, 2002; Wansink 2004a; Wansink, 2004 b). Additionally, Wansink (2004b) revealed that the more effort is needed to e.g. prepare a product the less of this product will be consumed. Hence when the effort increases, consumption will decrease (Wansink, 2004 b). Moreover, the studies of Buckley and colleagues (2007), revealed that households trying to avoid waste have a higher convenience consumption (Buckley et al., 2007) as these products can help them e.g. reduce the discarding of wasted ingredients (Buckley et al., 2005). Conversely this would suggest that convenient products are wasted less than their non-convenient equivalents.

In line with this argumentation, the characteristics of convenience food products seem to not only counteract the reasons leading to household food disposal behaviour, but also to increase their preference among consumers. Therefore, it is to expect, that convenience food products will be wasted less in comparison to their non-convenience counterparts, leading to the following first hypothesis:

H1 Convenience food usage, compared to its non-convenient counterpart, decreases the amount of wasted food.

2.6.2 The effect of cooking skills on the amount of food waste

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Conversely, one can assume that people with good cooking skills are able to prepare proper meals from scratch encompassing fresh and healthy ingredients as well as preparing the right amounts (Evans, 2011; Quested et al., 2013), leading to lower amounts of waste and more control of the own food waste behaviour (Graham-Rowe et al., 2014). Therefore, for those “good cooks” it will make no difference in their amount of wasted food, whether convenient or non-convenient products are used for the meal preparation. Additionally, Beck (2007) revealed in her research that convenience food products require fewer cooking skills from the food preparer compared to their non-convenient equivalents (Beck, 2007). Hence, convenience products allow households even with fewer cooking skills to prepare more complex meals in the right quantity, leading to less leftovers or remaining ingredients in the fridge. Therefore, convenience food products can be seen as helpful in the waste reduction for households with poor food management skills.

However, other studies revealed that convenience products relate negatively with people’s cooking enjoyment and are even seen as undesirable by some cooks precisely because of their convenient usage (Candel, 2001; Costa et al., 2007; Hartmann et al., 2013) Therefore, as convenience products may reduce the consumers’ cooking pleasure and the value of the task, good cooks may even be reluctant or reject the usage of convenience products.

Combining these argumentations, one can assume that convenience products are more useful for people with lower cooking and food management skills than for those with high skills (Brunner et al., 2010). The food preparation knowledge of the latter ones makes the waste reduction characteristics of the convenient products unnecessary for them. Additionally, as good cooks enjoy the task of cooking they could perceive convenience products as unnecessary and be hesitating regarding their usage (Brunner et al., 2010; Candel, 2001; Daniels, 2012). Hence, the assumption can be made, that the positive effect of convenience products on the amount of disposed food decreases with an increase in cooking skills. Therefore, the following second hypothesis can be established.

H2 Convenience food usage decreases food waste to a smaller extent, the higher the cooking skills.

2.6.3 The effect of time pressure on the amount of food waste

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waste arises e.g. when households do not have enough time to cook properly, replacing food requiring more time to prepare or consume via more convenient alternatives, leading to the wastage of the former one (Evans 2011; Evans 2012). This assumption is also supported by Buchli and Lucas (2001) showing that less time devoted to food preparation increases the amount of wasted food (Buchli & Lucas, 2001). Additionally, time pressure is leading to the wish of accelerating activities such as preparing meals and having dinner (Godbey et al., 1998).

Hence, convenience products can be perceived as a solution to alleviate time scarcity, as those products require less time from the consumer for e.g. the preparation than their non-convenient counterparts (Brunner et al, 2010; Mc Kenzie, 1986 in Buckley et al., 2007). Moreover, Verlegh and Candel (1999) found that convenience consumption is higher in households where the meal preparer has a paid job, and holds a positive relationship to the number of hours this person works (Verlegh & Candel, 1999). Those results show that convenience products are perceived by households as useful to overcome time scarcity. Therefore, one could assume, that if time pressured people use convenience instead of non-convenience products, they waste less because the preparation of these products is more compatible with their scarce time budget.

Moreover, the way households use their time and their perception of time availability are key determinants regarding the waste management, meaning that those time related factors influence people’s willingness to participate in recycling or their waste reduction (Godbey et al., 1998). Therefore, convenience product usage would allow households to e.g. save time within the food preparation, which would conversely allow those consumers to devote more time to their waste reduction. Hence, this means that less food is disposed when using convenience instead of non- convenience food products.

Combining the discussed arguments, time constraints and time scarcity seem to be major contributors to household food waste (Godbey et al., 1998). As time pressured households want to speed up their daily activities the assumption can be made that this is also the case regarding their food preparation and consumption (Godbey et al., 1998; Jabs and Devine, 2006; Kaufman et al., 1991). Therefore, they will probably waste less convenience food than its non- convenient counterpart as the former one requires less time regarding the preparation, consumption and the clean-up than the latter one. Based on this, the following third hypotheses can be derived.

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2.6.4 The effect of time pressure and cooking skills on the amount of food waste

Several studies revealed that there are still a lot of people who define homemade meals as necessarily prepared with raw ingredients and from scratch. Those people perceive convenience products not as proper food and have a feeling of guilt and regret as well as of failure regarding the own duties when relying on convenience products (Botonaki &Mattas, 2010; Carrigan et al., 2006; Costa et al., 2007). Costa et al., state, that a lot of consumers hold negative valuations to convenience due to their belief that a certain amount of effort, attention and time needs to be devoted to the meal preparation (Costa et al., 2007). Additionally, cooking can give especially women feelings of confidence and self-worth and can be seen as a hobby as well as a relaxing activity, much more than a necessity (Daniels et al., 2012; Dixey, 1996). Especially for those “cooks” the social aspect of cooking is important, as cooking allows them to care for others as well as to impress their family or friends with their dishes (Daniels, 2012; Kaufmann 2010; Möser 2010). Hence, the assumption can be made that these people are proud of their skills and cooking proper meals is of great importance to them. Additionally, as these people can be seen as good cooks it will make no difference in their amount of waste when using convenience products or the non- convenience counterparts.

However, it needs to be taken into account that preparing a meal from scratch is more time consuming than using the convenient counterparts and convenience consumption can be observed as a solution to deal with time pressure (Botonaki et al., 2010). Additionally, time pressure is connected with people’s wish of accelerating e.g. food related activities and is responsible for an increase in households’ food disposal (Godbey et al., 1998). Therefore, one could assume that even good cooks rely on convenience products when having the feeling of time scarcity and that those products will help them minimize the amount of wasted food.

Nonetheless, Candel (2001) as well as Hartmann et al., (2013) revealed that convenience has a negative relationship with peoples’ cooking enjoyment (Candel, 2001; Hartmann et al., 2013) and the consumption of these products can even be perceived as undesirable, precisely because their preparation is convenient (Costa et al., 2007). Hence, convenience items reduce the cooking pleasure and the value of meal preparation. Therefore, a good cook would rather be reluctant regarding the use of convenience products.

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as an annoying task but rather as a task allowing them to relax or to enjoy what they are doing (Daniels et al., 2012; Dixey, 1996). The social aspects of cooking (Daniels, 2012; Kaufmann 2010; Möser 2010) outweigh the possibility of time saving. Additionally, those consumers, who perceive cooking as a valuable task, are proud of their abilities (Daniels, 2012; Kaufmann 2010; Möser 2010). Therefore, the possibility of faster meal preparation when using convenience products (Brunner et al., 2010) is not perceived as appealing for people possessing high cooking skills even if they experience high feelings of time pressure. Hence, the assumption can be made that these people will in every situation prefer using non-convenient rather than convenient products leading to more wastage of the latter one. Therefore, the following and final hypothesis can be derived:

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3. Methodology

3.1 Research Design

In order to be able to answer the research question of this thesis and to test the validity of the established hypotheses a field experiment is conducted. A field experiment was chosen as this method allows determining the causal relationship between variables with much greater certainty (Aronson, Wilson &Brewer, 1998).

The data collection is undertaken by two different means: (1) a food waste diary and (2) a questionnaire allowing obtaining additional knowledge regarding the participants. Since this research is conducted in order to measure the effects of two food types (convenience vs. non-convenience) the study entails one independent variable with two levels. Hence, a total of 2 experimental conditions will be employed within this paper.2

Furthermore, the research makes use of a between-subject design, meaning that each participant will be assigned to a different experimental condition. The advantage of this approach is, that the sequence effects leading to an awareness bias after having been exposed to one experimental condition can be avoided (Aronson et al., 1998).

Finally, random assignment of participants to the different experimental conditions will be used, in order to make sure that the results are caused by the manipulation of the variables rather than by pre-existing differences between the participants. Then, given sufficiently large sample sizes, the experimental groups are likely to be similar and individual differences are evenly distributed across conditions and thus unlikely to influence the results (Aronson et al., 1998).

3.2 Procedure of the experiment

The experiment is taking place at an Albert Heijn supermarket in Paterswolde, Netherlands, and food packages are distributed on three consecutive days (Thursday, 12th, Friday, 13th and Saturday, 14th November 2015). On Thursday the food packages are distributed from 2pm onwards and on Friday and Saturday from 10am onwards. On Thursday 24 food packages will be distributed, 120 food packages on Friday and the remaining 56 will be handed out on Saturday3. On each of the days an equal number of convenient and non-convenient food packages will be distributed. Those days and times

2_{Additionally, the study entailed a second experimental condition by giving half of the study participants a}

recipe within their food packages. However, this second condition will not be examined in more detail within this research and only be incorporated as a control variable.

3_{Due to a lack of willing study participants the actual food package distribution varies slightly compared to}

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have been chosen as own research showed that these are the most popular shopping days and shopping hours among the consumers of this particular store. Additionally, those three days can be seen as the most frequent days for weekly grocery shopping among a large population allowing to reach participants from e.g. different age groups as well as household sizes.

In total 200 food packages are distributed from which 100 contain non-convenient and 100 convenient products. Of those 200, 60% of the packages are suited for 1-2 person households and 40% for 2+ households, in line with the population of Paterswolde. The products and quantities are in both conditions (convenience and non-convenience) identical and vary only in their degree of convenience. A detailed list of the ingredients can be found in the appendix (Appendix A).

Table 1: Composition food packages

The distributed food packages contain the food items and a letter explaining again in detail the study process as well as an e-mail address for further questions. Additionally, the diary and questionnaire as well as 10 sealable plastic bags for the waste collection are distributed within the packages.

Respondents are asked to fill in the questionnaire and the food waste diary for a period of 10 days as well as to keep their waste e.g. potato skins or products they did not consume within the sealable plastic bags. The study participants are asked to collect their waste, as they weight the products without supervision, which makes the control of the accuracy impossible. Hence, by collecting the waste additional weighting is possible, which results in a more precise database. Furthermore, the questionnaire can be filled out on paper, or if preferred, online via the survey platform Qualtrics.

In order to be able to carry out the study anonymously each food package as well as the questionnaire, food diary and sealable plastic bags are marked with an individual respondent number from 1 to 200. Hence, participants are identifiable only by their unique respondent number.

Convenient Food packages Non-Convenient Food Packages Total ₁₀₀ ₁₀₀

1-2 Person Households ₆₀ ₆₀

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To attract participants a sign indicating, “Help us graduate and get a free food package” was displayed at the stand. Additionally, the Albert Heijn Paterswolde posted a picture of the study setup and the four researchers on their Facebook page encouraging customers to drop by and learn more about the study (see Appendix B for a photo of the study set up).

Interested customers are approached by one of the researchers and asked if they are willing to participate in the study and receive a bag of free groceries for this purpose. Once someone agrees to participate, the study as well as the required contribution in order to participate will be explained in more detail. However, the real purpose of the study will not be revealed to potential participants in order to prevent behavioural changes. After the participants have signed the informed consent form, they are randomly, according to their household size, assigned to one of the research conditions. Moreover, the participants are kindly asked whether they would be willing to indicate their e-mail address or phone number in order to enable the researchers to contact them if they do not return the study materials.

After the 10 days (Sunday 22nd and Monday 23rd November 2015) participants can bring back their waste, questionnaire and diary to the Albert Heijn in Paterswolde and hand it over to one of the four researchers. Study participants bringing back their diary and questionnaire will receive a little present as a token of appreciation for their participation. If they also hand in the collected waste, participants will be part of a lottery and have the chance to win one of five grocery shopping gift cards. Finally, in order to give an additional incentive to collect the waste it was promised that the “voedselbank” of Paterswolde will receive a donation, if 75% of the participants bring back their collected waste.

3.3 Data collection

As mentioned above, the data collection is undertaken by two different means: (1) a food waste diary and (2) a questionnaire in order to obtain additional information about the study participants.

3.3.1 Food Waste Diary

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Within this research the distributed food waste diary consists of four sections (Appendix C).4_{The first part measures the}participants’ frequency of ordering take away

food and dining in a restaurant as well as the shopping frequency, main shopping and top up shopping. The second and third part focus on the products distributed within the food packages by measuring how many grams the participants have eaten from the products and how many grams of the given products have been thrown away. Within section four, participants are asked to record the wasted quantity of additional 21 categories, and one “others” category for products that cannot be assigned to one of the proposed product categories.

The additional products are chosen as, according to Van Doorn and Verhoef (2015), those are the largest food categories generating about 80% of all food purchases within the Netherlands (Van Doorn & Verhoef, 2015). The food products distributed within the food packages can be classified as virtue products whereas the additional 21 categories can be divided into virtue (e.g. bread, cereals, fruits), vice (e.g. alcohol, biscuits and chocolate) and neither vice nor virtue categories (e.g. coffee and tea, meat, rice and pasta) (Van Doorn & Verhoef, 2015).

Finally, the amount of wasted food needs to be weighted by the participants themselves each time a product is thrown away. In order to provide some guidance for participants not having a scale, or not wanting to weight every piece, weight examples are given behind each product. The participants are asked to fill in the diary for a sequential period of ten days.

3.3.2 Questionnaire

To increase the knowledge about the households taking part in the study, participants are asked to fill in the questionnaire (Appendix E) next to their food waste diary. The questionnaire consists of a total of 36 questions and is used in order to gain additional information regarding the study participants.

The first questions are used in order to increase the knowledge regarding the household’s sociodemographic profile (e.g. age, gender, working status and household size), their economic situation (net income), and their shopping as well as eating habits.

4_{For the participants having a recipe, the food waste diary consist of five sections, entailing an additional}

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Additionally, participants are asked to evaluate the received food package (e.g. quality of the products).

Afterwards, participants need to answer questions about their cooking skills, their involvement within the task of cooking as well as questions regarding their feeling of time pressure and the possibilities to save time. Additionally, participants’ motivation and perceived competence of maintaining a healthy diet as well as their concern for, and knowledge of naturalness within food products is assessed.

Moreover, data regarding the participants’ general attitude towards convenience food products as well as wasting food are collected. Finally, the last questions aim at determining the main reasons for household over purchasing and food waste, participants’ perceived importance of different compendiums for their life as well as their price sensitivity.

3.4 Measurements

3.4.1 Food Waste

The dependent variable food waste will be measured with the help of the data collected within the food waste diaries and through the additional data gained by weighting the participants’ collected food waste. As those two measures result in a large quantity of data it was decided to divide the dependent variable of food waste into several variables.

The food waste variable used within this research is composed of three categories gained throughout the additional weighting of the collected food waste; the unavoidable, the avoidable and the unprepared food waste. The categorization of the three waste categories was conducted as followed: the unavoidable waste category entails waste occurring during the food preparation phase and for which a wastage is unavoidable such as vegetable peels or a broccoli stalk. The avoidable waste refers to products that have been edible before thrown away and for which wastage could have been avoided such as e.g. meal leftovers. Furthermore, the unprepared food waste category entails the waste of all the unused products that have not undergone any form of preparation from the participants such as unused vegetables or uncooked risotto.

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risotto than the convenient condition the unprepared food waste will be corrected by deducting the difference of 150grams of risotto.

Further, two additional food waste variables will be used in order to carry out robustness checks to assess the solidity of the results. For this purpose the food waste variable composed of the unprepared food waste as well as the food waste variable based on the data participants provided within their diary was used. The calculations for the unprepared food waste variables are the same as described above. The second variable will be computed by subtracting the participants’ consumption data from the total weight of the original grocery food package. For this purpose only the consumption data of the received food packages is used, leaving out consumption amounts of the additionally assessed food categories. In order to have comparable results, in the non-convenient condition the total package weight was corrected for the risotto difference and for the unavoidable waste such as for example peels. In order to be able to correct for peels, an average amount of unavoidable waste was computed for each vegetable category, with the help of the data gained within the additional weighting. This results in an average amount of 607grams for the 1-2 person household packages and 927grams for the 2+ person household packages.

Table 2: Calculation dependent food waste variable

3.4.2 Cooking skills

The participants’ cooking skills are measured by asking them to evaluate their ability to prepare different products (Brunner et al., 2010) on a 7 point Likert scale varying from 1 (completely disagree) to 7 (completely agree). Example statements that study participants are asked to rate are e.g.: “I can prepare a soup from scratch”; “I can bake a cake from

”.

Convenient condition Non-Convenient condition Food waste Unprepared+ Unavoidable+

Avoidable Unprepared*+ Avoidable

Food Waste (unprepared food waste)

Weight of all the unprepared products

*Weight of all the unprepared products deducted by 150 grams to correct for the risotto

difference

Food waste (participants diary data)

Total package weight- total product consumption

Total package weight deducted by unavoidable waste and risotto difference- total product

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3.4.3 Time pressure

The scale used by Brunner and colleagues (2010) within their research was chosen as an appropriate scale to measure the individual’s feeling of time pressure. Within this scale, participants have to rate 6 time pressure related statements on a 7-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (completely disagree) to 7 (completely agree): “So much to do so little

time, this saying applies very well to me” (Brunner et al., 2010).

3.4.4 Control variables

The following control variables are incorporated within this particular research: age, gender, level of education, employment status, working hours per week, the exact number of children per household as well as the net income, as they do have an expected influence on household food waste (Evans, 2011; Evans, 2012; Koivupuro et al., 2012 Lyndhurst et al., 2007; Parfitt et al., 2010). Additionally, age, gender and having children are found to be good predictors of peoples’ cooking skills (Hartman et al., 2013). Whereas, the employment status, the working hours, the net income as well as the level of education are good predictors of the time households assign to food preparation as well as their feeling of time scarcity (Möser, 2010; Daniels et al., 2012; Mc Cracken & Brandt, 1987; Anxo & Carlin, 2004).

Additionally, the second experimental condition (with or without recipe), the time participants spend cooking on weekdays and on the weekend, as well as the package size are also incorporated within this paper.

Convenience products - a solution for household food waste?

Convenience products - a solution for household

food waste?

The influence of convenience food on household food waste

taking into account time pressure and cooking skills

Janina Märkle

Convenience products - a solution for household

food waste?

The influence of convenience food on household food waste

taking into account time pressure and cooking skills

University of Groningen

Faculty of Economic and Business

MSc Marketing Management

Master Thesis

11th January 2016

First supervisor: dr. J. (Jenny) van Doorn

Second supervisor: prof. dr. ir. K. (Koert) van Ittersum

Janina Märkle

Coehoornsingel 27a

9711BM Groningen

Email: j.s.markle@student.rug.nl

Abstract

Management Summary

Preface

Table of Contents

List of Figures

List of Tables

1. Introduction

2. Literature Review

3. Methodology