Investigation of food wastage in different types of restaurants in China and analysis of its influencing factors

At present, with the rapid development of catering industry, food wastage is becoming more and more serious. The students and working class who were born in 2000-2010 and 1960-1999 and whose food consumption were less than 3 000 yuan every month, were taken as consumer groups to investigate the current situation and their awareness factors of food wastage in different types of restaurants by questionnaire surveys conducted in traditional restaurants, buffets, fast food and snacks. Excel, SPSS and other software combined with mathematical statistics theory were used to analyze the status and causes of food wastage. Structural equation model combined with planned behavior theory were used to analyze and predict the willingness of food wastage, and Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) was also used to verify the fitting effect of the prediction probability model of the factors affecting consumer awareness. The results showed that the order of food wastage in different types of restaurants was traditional restaurant > cafeteria > fast food and snacks. Business meal was the main reason for consumers to waste food, due to the dishes were not suitable for appetites or too heavy to finish. In addition, it was found that men are more likely to waste food than women. The consumers born in 2000-2010 and 1990-1999 had a higher degree of food wastage, and the proportion of food waste was gradually decreasing with the increase of ages. Through the analysis and prediction of structural equation model, it showed that personal behavior attitude and perceive behavior control indirectly affected the consumers’ behavior intention of food wastage. Therefore, food wastage could be alleviated by guiding and improving consumers’ awareness and attitude. The study found that the ways to reduce food wastage included packing leftovers, and choosing foods that were easy to store and self preference, etc. For restaurants operators, they were suggested to actively guide consumers’ awareness of diligence and frugality and packaging of leftover meals by providing exquisite gifts and establish membership systems to alleviate food wastage.