HOUSEHOLD FOOD WASTE IN TURKEY: CONSUMER BEHAVIOR AND PERCEPTION

---

Dolekoglu Ozcicek, Gun S, Var I and Sengul S

Adana Science and Technology University, Turkey
Ankara University, Turkey
Cukurova University, Turkey

: Int J Ment Health Psychiatry

Abstract

---

Food waste is global issue for the food security. It has been estimated that roughly one third of food produced in the world every year is wasted. It is reported that approximately 1.3 billion tons of the food produced is wasted. Amount of food waste could not rightly know for the developing countries like Turkey. This study focuses on analysing food wastage in Adana. This study was conducted in Adana province in June of 2016 with 387 households, and household food waste was determined. The average household size is 3.1 persons. However, according to consumer unit weight, that is 2.6 person. People needs different energy by age, gender and physical activity and consume food in different quantities. Removing this disparity in nutrition studies has developed coefficients to express family members with the same unit. In this study, "Consumer Unit" coefficient was used in 1974 which takes into account the age and gender of the Turkish Nutrition Survey. All family members are expressed in this unit by calculating this coefficient with consumer unit type. The average income in the provinces is 3,397 TL; average food expenditure is about 965 TL. The parents were informed about the shopping list and the amount of waste from these purchases last week. Accordingly, vegetables and fruits are the most wasted product group in total construction. On the product basis bread is the first place. Approximately 897 kg of the last week's purchase of 10% of your sow had been wasted. This ratio was above the average of Turkey, according to the Research on Waste of Bread, 2.9% of the planting time was wasted (2013). As the product price increases and the purchasing frequency decreases, the waste rate decreases. It had been determined that the number of children wasted (54.1%) among the households and the reason for the most wastage was the food selection habit (34.4%). The increase of the news sources of the consumers and the facilitation of access to this, efforts in the field have also increased consumer awareness. This is supported by the reaction of the consumers to the garbage they buy. In this case, 311 consumers will return the product at the time of purchase.

Biography

---

Dolekoglu has studied about consumer behaviour and marketing. She has expertise in food marketing, food safety, and food waste. She studies in Adana Science and Technology University, Management Faculty as an associate professor. She has researched the practicability of healthy, safe and environmentally friendly food consumption and has worked with various institutions and organizations in this regard.

Email: codolekoglu@abtu.edu.tr