Predicting the consumption of expired food by an extended Theory of Planned Behavior

Household food waste prevention is an important leverage point to improve global environmental sustainability. Previous research shows that consumers' performance of food waste preventing consumption practices referring to expired food represents an effective way to promote household food waste prevention. However, in order to promote this performance, more information about the psychological predictors determining this performance is needed. Therefore, a study was conducted in order to propose a comprehensive theoretical model explaining consumers' performance of food waste preventing consumption practices referring to expired food. Based on online survey data received from a German sample (N = 331), consumers' performance of food waste preventing consumption practices referring to expired food was well predicted by the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), which was supplemented by personal norms, habits and perceived health risks. Based on the presented findings, the present research provides important implications for future research and valuable implications for intervention practice in order to promote consumers' performance of food waste preventing consumption practice referring to expired food and, thus, to promote household food waste prevention.