Do young families tend to waste their food?

Department of Agricultural Socioeconomics, Faculty of Agriculture, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia

^* Corresponding author: sugiyarto.pnugm@ugm.ac.id

Abstract

While there is strong evidence about the negative consequences of food waste behaviour to the economy and environment, there might still limited information about the intention and attitude on food waste issue among people, particularly young family. The objective of this study is to understand the intention to avoid food waste among young families, as well as their personal attitudes toward food waste behaviour. The data for this study were collected by using convenience sampling method among urban young families in 4 cities, namely Medan, Surabaya, Denpasar, and Yogyakarta. The respondents of 100 young head of households aged between 24-40 years old were analyzed descriptively after measured by the Likert scale. The findings reveal strong evidence that young families have tried hard not to waste their food. As for the main intention to avoid food waste, the effort aimed to reduce food waste as much as they can, as well as to reutilize all the leftovers, appears as relevant factors needed to be improved. As for their personal attitudes toward food waste issue, the view of the society that discarding food is immoral considered as the main reason for their intention toward food waste behaviour.