ANNOUNCEMENTS
Food waste in households is an unacceptable impediment to achieving “food security, health insurance, and hunger reduction”, and one of the most crucial impediments to achieving individual and public health benefits. The implications of COVID-19 on the wastage of food at the consumer level is an important research area, not only because of the conceivably dire consequences of a COVID-19 worldwide pandemic but also because of how food-waste-related behaviour patterns can change in a situation of exigency. The disruptive consequences of pandemics on the roadmap to Agenda 2030 and reaching SDG 12 of conscientious consumption and production is an affiliated source of fear which was also highlighted at COP26. The present study aims to identify the critical factors that affect “intention to not waste food” and “actual behaviour towards household food waste” in light of a pandemic and investigate any intention-behaviour gap in the food waste context. A comprehensive model was constructed and tested with 174 Delhi household consumers based on the theoretical lens of the Theory of Planned Behaviour. The research findings depict that financial attitude was a significant determinant for food waste behaviour. The findings also suggest that moral standards and perceived behaviour control had only a moderate effect on dependent variable of food waste behaviour but a notable impact on intention to not waste food (included in the context of pandemic). The sample didn't exhibit many impacts of sociodemographic factors on either of the dependent variables except for household income and size. During the COVID-19 pandemic in Delhi, the household food waste increased, despite an increase in the intention to not waste food. This research contributes to building an improved understanding of the gap between people's intentions and their actual behaviour towards food waste by proposing that the economic conditions of the households are the differentiating factor between the “willingness to not waste food and actually not doing it”. This underscores the necessity for policies targeted at minimising food waste in households that take into consideration the various levels of income, food expenditures, and TPB aspects like moral standards and guilt.
