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Marketing and Consumer Behaviour group receives funding to combat food waste
Globally, around 931 million tonnes of food is wasted every year (UNEP food waste index report 2021). Along the EU food supply chain, from primary production to consumption, around 88 million tonnes of food is wasted, with associated costs estimated at 143 billion euros. International project ‘Towards a new zero food waste mindset based on holistic assessment’, or ToNoWaste, aims to contribute to the reduction of food waste.
It does so with a multi-actor and interdisciplinary approach. The project not only considers the agronomic, economic, environmental and business model challenges but also other cross-cutting aspects such as psychology, law and social innovation.
ToNoWaste is designed to take advantage from previous results for the identification of the social, technical/environmental, economic, political/legal, ethical and demographic root causes of the problem. The project aims to inspire market actors to use science and evidence-based assessment tools and data to make better decisions towards more sustainable food production and consumption patterns. 21 institutions from 7 countries collaborate in this international project with a 4 year scope.
In two pilot cities, Valencia and Vienne, various real-life interventions will be tested, including city food basket initiatives, a new date marketing system, a consumer engagement app, pilot actions in supermarkets, cooking workshops, and more. Consumer responses will be assessed using measures collected before and after the period of implementation of these interventions.
The Marketing, Consumer and Behaviour group takes the lead in the research to foster changes in consumer behaviour and business practices in this project that received a €368.000 grant from the European Union’s funding programme Horizon Europe. Project ToNoWaste responds to the call Evidence-based decision-making to change social norms towards zero food waste(HORIZON-CL6-2021-FARM2FORK-01-13; research and innovation action).