Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on household food waste behaviour: A systematic review

Food waste in time of COVID-19: The heterogeneous effects on consumer groups in Italy and the Netherlands

“…The 52% of Italian respondents and the 26% of Dutch respondents instead declared a decrease in the perceived food waste. These findings are coherent with results from similar studies conducted in other countries as Romania ( Burlea-Schiopoiu et al, 2021 ), USA ( Cosgrove et al, 2021 ; Rodgers et al, 2021 ), Canada ( Laila et al, 2022 ), and Japan ( Qian et al, 2020 ), as well as from meta reviews, as Iranmanesh et al, 2022 . Moreover, while some attention has been put on the potential underestimation of food waste generated during the COVID-19 pandemic ( Everitt et al, 2022 ), the decreasing of household food waste seems confirmed.…”

Digital food sharing and food insecurity in the COVID-19 era

“…For one, at-home cooking and food-related activities also became more popular during lockdown, which potentially increased awareness and adoption of different food waste reducing behaviors ( Babbitt et al, 2021 ; Bender et al, 2022 ; Principato et al, 2022 ; Roe et al, 2021 ; Vittuari et al, 2021 ). For example, people sought creative recipes that would allow them to utilize food leftovers, and paid closer attention to expiration dates ( Iranmanesh et al, 2022 ; Principato et al, 2022 ). The pandemic also heightened consumers’ awareness regarding the consequences of food waste and increased pro-environmental attitudes more broadly ( Castellini et al, 2021 ; Tchetchik et al, 2021 ).…”

“…Such changes in dietary preference and acquisition patterns alongside boarder lifestyle and time use shifts affected food waste generation in contradictory ways. Heightened awareness prompted by concerns about food availability and more careful food planning and management practices, likely reduced household food waste generation, while stockpiling and panic-buying likely increased it ( Babbitt et al, 2021 ; Everitt et al, 2022 ; Ikiz et al, 2021 ; Iranmanesh et al, 2022 ; Principato et al, 2022 ; Secondi et al, 2022 ; Vittuari et al, 2021 ; WRAP, 2021 ).…”

Has the COVID-19 pandemic changed household food management and food waste behavior? A natural experiment using propensity score matching

“…Such investigations can shed a light on the magnitude of behavior change needed to achieve nationally and globally set targets such as halving food waste by 2030, as enshrined in the United National Sustainable Development Goal 12.3. A plethora of literature has been emerging during post-lockdown period examining the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on household food behavior and food waste (see Iranmanesh et al (2022) for a recent review of pandemic impacts on household food waste behavior). However, whilst useful, almost all studies that examined the causal impact of COVID-19 on household food waste behavior adopted a retrospective study design.…”

“…Previous studies took a retrospective perspective and did not contain a robust causal inference research design. Except for a handful of studies, most studies were underpowered and used small ( n = 15) to medium ( n < 1000) samples ( Iranmanesh et al, 2022 ), which are not nationally representative. The present study uses a large nationally representative sample allowing us to make robust inferences.…”