Exploring barriers to consuming suboptimal foods: A consumer perspective

Food suboptimality is one of the major driving factors of food waste at the consumer level. Consumer decision to purchase a suboptimal food strongly depends on the associations raised by the suboptimality. In this context, the aim of the current study was to study the influence of different types of suboptimality on consumer associations, emotional reactions, perceived quality dimensions, and purchase intention. An online study with 600 Uruguayan participants was conducted. Results showed that the presence of a suboptimality triggered associations about quality issues and negative emotional reactions. The effect of suboptimality varied with categories and type of suboptimality. Regarding perceived quality, a significant reduction in perceived quality and purchase intention was found for products with damaged packages and defective fresh produce. At the aggregate level, consumers showed a slightly higher intention to purchase the products when a 50% discount was considered. In summary, results from the present work suggest that communication strategies aimed at increasing the perceived quality of suboptimal foods and pricing tactics could contribute to reduce food waste at the store level.