Browsing by Subject "food waste"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    Consumer Behavior and Environmental Policy: Applications to Issues in Food Waste and Organics Recycling
    (2019-07) Dusoruth, Vaneesha
    A large proportion of the food produced in the United States is wasted throughout the supply chain, with households accounting for the highest proportion. In Chapter 1, building on the existing literature, this paper develops a structural model to determine the economic relationship between household food waste reduction efforts, organics recycling efforts, and the opportunity cost of time in a public goods framework. In Chapter 2, we classify consumers in distinct classes dictated by their food related routines such as grocery shopping and kitchen management. We then investigate the roles of products attributes, especially cosmetic appearance and expiration dates, on food waste tendencies across these different classes of consumers. We examine whether underlying risk preferences and stated risk perceptions have an impact on those food waste propensities. In addition to prevention strategies that curb the negative impacts of food waste, recycling presents an opportunity to convert environmentally harmful materials into valuable economic downstream products such as compost. In chapter 3, we conduct a randomized control trial to examine the impact on information on organics recycling behavior and food waste generation tendencies in a local community.
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    D2D 2016 Food Study
    (2020-05-12) Peterson, Hikaru H; hhp@umn.edu; Peterson, Hikaru H
    The data contains responses to an interactive survey at the 2016 Minnesota State Fair (N=333), which was used to obtain measurements on food-related behavior and sociodemographic factors. The survey included a conjoint task to elicit food discard tendencies to construct the food waste proxy. The study considered cosmetic deterioration, date labels, implied shelf life, package size, and prices paid, in fresh, packaged spinach and ground beef products.
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    Demand-Side Approaches to Improving Global Food Sustainability
    (2015-08) Reich, Alexander
    Humanity faces the grand challenge of doubling its food supply by 2050 while reducing agriculture's already substantial impact on the environment. Supply-side approaches such as sustainable intensification may not be able to achieve this goal alone without significant efforts to reduce food waste and the consumption of animal products. This thesis presents three efforts to learn and educate about these demand-side strategies. To inform policymakers about the state of the science of food loss and waste in the United States, we created a technical issue brief. Using the principles of behavioral economics and psychology as applied to public policy, we transformed the issue brief into an accessible format, online video, to reach ~650,000 viewers. Finally, we conducted exploratory research into the potential of a global carbon tax to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions from animal protein today and in 2050, finding little evidence of its efficacy.