Abstract:
Food waste is a phenomenon underestimated by many countries in the world, and it is seeing a steady growth each year of production according to the World Wide Fund (2019). Food waste has become a norm, and this needs to be changed soon. This study focused predominantly on the consumer level of food waste and attempted to better understand the reason as to why food waste is occurring at this level in the food supply chain, and also to determine whether nutritional knowledge plays a role in fresh produce waste specifically.
The study uncovered the reasoning behind consumers wasting their unconsumed foods especially with regards to fresh produce like fruits and vegetables. Quantitative research was conducted for this study by means of an online survey, sent to employed individuals between the ages of 26 years to 51 years and Older. The results show that the younger age group in women are more knowledgeable about nutritional value of fruits and vegetables and older men are more aware of the nutritional value of fresh produce. Furthermore, the study uncovered that food waste is impacted by how people see nutritional value of fresh produce and how they dispose of unconsumed foods.
