Consumer Behavior, Food Waste and Sustainable Food Systems
A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Food".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 1 May 2026 | Viewed by 6959
Special Issue Editors
Interests: food safety; food quality; food security; food waste management; consumer behavior
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: food hygiene; food hygiene practice; food safety; food security; food waste management; consumer behaviour; consumer education
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Globally, about one-third of total food is wasted per year. According to UNEP estimates, households wasted about 631 million tons of food in 2022 (i.e. 60% of the 1.05 billion tons of total food wasted). Our food system is one of the main contributors to greenhouse gas emissions, which means it plays a key role in climate change. Therefore, the need for more sustainable food production and consumption is evident. The irrational use of food, in addition to the formation of waste, consumes natural resources and affects global warming. Moreover, it is a barrier to sustainable development for the food sector on a global scale. Preventing household food waste is undoubtedly an important issue; however, even with minimization strategies, unconsumed food will still be, and must be, appropriately disposed of. Some disposal practices are more environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable than others. Therefore, showing consumers the most beneficial ways to comply with the food waste hierarchy is essential. Various sociodemographic, economic, and cultural factors, including gender, age, household size, the presence and number of children, income, and education, are drivers of food waste. An important group of determinants for household food waste are so-called internal factors, i.e. those related to consumer knowledge, attitudes, and behavior toward food. It is essential to develop and implement various educational programs and campaigns to raise awareness of the problem of food waste.
This Special Issue will include a selection of recent research and current review articles about:
- Consumer behavior in terms of food waste.
- Factors determining the formation of food waste in households.
- Food waste minimization.
- Disposal paths for food waste.
- Sustainable food consumption.
- Educational programs and campaigns to raise awareness of the problem of food waste.
Prof. Dr. Beata Bilska
Dr. Marzena Tomaszewska
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- consumer behaviour
- food waste
- sustainable food systems
- driving factors
- educational programs
- food waste prevention
- food waste minimization
- disposal paths
- food waste management
- food waste hierarchy
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