Exploring Household Food Waste Issue in Algeria

Abstract

Food losses and waste (FLW) is a phenomenon that has been underestimated, littlestudied and poorly documented in the Mediterranean countries. Actually, nopolicies, laws, strategies and action plans have been implemented to reduce FLWin Algeria. This exploratory study aims to evaluate household FW in Algeria. Anonline survey with 323 Algerian households was conducted in February-April 2015to assess the knowledge and relative importance of FW; attitudes towards FW;impacts of behaviors regarding food and food management; FW quantity andvalue; as well as barriers and willingness to behavioral change. Sample is genderbalanced(54% female and 46% male) and rather young (93% are less than 44 yearsold) while most of respondents have high education level. Results show thathousehold planning and shopping activities are significant forecasters of FW.Attitudes may change according to periods especially in Ramadan (88% ofrespondents declare that FW increase during this month) and to the category offood (most wasted product groups are fruits and vegetables, cereals and bakeryproducts). Most of the respondents have a good understanding of “use by” fooddate label while they still confuse the meaning of “best before”. It seems that FW iswidespread in Algeria as only 1% of respondents declare that they do not waste anyfood. About 15% declare that their households throw away at least 250 g of stillconsumable food each week. Even though Algeria is considered as a developingcountry, an important part of food wastage occurs at consumer level as in high andmiddle income countries. In order to reduce food waste, efforts should be directedtowards providing consumers with skills and tools to deal with their food-relatedactivities and to better consider the impact of food waste on the environment andeconomy.

COVID-19 virus outbreak lockdown: What impacts on household food wastage?

“…Only 10% declared to discard them (Table 2). Our data are in striking contrast to similar studies conducted in North Africa before COVID-19 pandemic, stating that the majority of uneaten food was usually wasted (Abouabdillah et al 2015;Elmenofi et al 2015;Arous et al 2017). During COVID-19 lockdown, it appears that most of the respondents have set up a strategy of saving, storing and eating leftovers.…”

“…Responses reveal the most cited reasons were over cooking (35%) and a too long storage in the refrigerator (30%). Our results are consistent with those reported by Pearson et al (2013), Arous et al (2017) and Hebrok and Boks (2017), indicating that buying and cooking too much, not finishing meals and inappropriate food storage techniques were recognized as significant drivers of food waste by consumers. Over cooking was probably related to the difficulty to estimate how much to cook per person or how to cook the right portions, but also to Tunisian culture, customs and traditions, such as hospitality, food perceived as wealth and the good mother identity.…”

“…In contrast, fish and seafood group, meat and meats products as well as pulses and oilseeds are the least wasted food, mostly estimated as less than 2% of purchased foods. Similar results on discarded food categories were found in Morocco (Abouabdillah et al 2015), Turkey (Yildirim et al 2016), Algeria (Arous et al 2017), as well as in Italy (Fanelli and Di Florio 2016) and Hungary (Szabó-Bódi et al 2018). According to Tunisian National Institute for Consumption (INC 2018), households waste about 16% for bread, 10% for cereal products (pasta and couscous) and 6% for vegetables.…”

“…The study was based on an online survey in Tunisia using a structured questionnaire, adapted from previous studies performed in the North Africa region (Abouabdillah et al 2015;Sassi et al 2016;Arous et al 2017).…”

“…Several studies identified food categories that are most wasted in households, such as fresh fruits and vegetables, bread and other bakery goods, and leftovers (Fanelli and Di Florio 2016;Shanes et al 2018;Szabó-Bódi et al 2018). Others studies have focused on consumers' behavior, awareness and the causes of food waste in countries such as Australia (Pearson et al 2013), Morocco (Abouabdillah et al 2015), Egypt (Elmenofi et al 2015), Italy and Germany (Jörissen et al 2015), Turkey (Yildirim et al 2016), Algeria (Arous et al 2017), Greece (Ponis et al 2017), Montenegro (Berjan et al 2019) and Malaysia (Dalilawati et al 2019).…”