Erica van Herpen wants to reduce waste: “Consumers throw away a lot of food and packaging without wanting to”

A large part of global food waste occurs at home, and that has important consequences. When people do not eat food but throw it away, not only is the food itself wasted, but all efforts around production, packaging, and transport have also been in vain. As a result, food waste has a substantial impact on greenhouse gas emissions, in addition to its financial and moral consequences. It is therefore important to reduce this waste, but for various reasons this is not easy.

Difficult to measure and change

People are often unaware of their own waste, or trivialize it. Food waste is not visible to others, which makes it difficult to measure. That is why Erica van Herpen and her colleagues have developed a validated questionnaire and are working on further developing other measurement methods. “In some of our studies, we collect waste from people to sort through, or we ask people to weigh their waste themselves. And in ongoing research, we are studying possibilities for using AI to code photos of food waste.”

Reducing food waste is also difficult because it is caused by a complex web of behaviors. “People do not want to waste food or other things, it is not their intention, but it happens again and again. This paradox fascinates me and that is what we are trying to understand in our research,” says Van Herpen. At the moment of waste, it is not always clear what the cause is. Did someone buy too much? Was the food not stored properly, causing it to spoil sooner? Was too much cooked or did planning fail? Waste can have various causes, and people are stuck in routines and habits in their dealings with food, which are not easy to change.

Reducing food waste

Together with business partners and colleagues, Erica van Herpen is testing various ways to reduce food waste in people's homes: toolkits with measuring cups and stickers that help people waste less; flexible recipes that encourage people to use leftover ingredients; the use of meal boxes and surprise packages. The positive outcome of these studies is that it seems possible to tackle waste.

Packaging

In addition to studying food waste, Van Herpen has started a research line around reducing packaging waste. She leads the NWO project Re2Pack, which focuses on reusable packaging. Together with other universities and companies, this project examines the design of packaging and systems, consumer behaviour change, and the environmental and economic impact.

Collaboration

Erica van Herpen enjoys working together with government institutions and companies. She sees great added value in this, because it ensures social impact. “It is incredibly inspiring to see that research is used, not only by other scientists, but also in practice. For example, our framework for food waste in the household is used by the Nutrition Centre, and at EU and international level, to develop interventions to reduce waste.”