Consumer associations about other buyers of suboptimal food – And what it means for food waste avoidance actions

One approach to tackling the imminent sustainability problem of food waste is to sell suboptimal food which otherwise might be wasted. However, understanding how the action of buying price-reduced suboptimal food is influenced by the fact that the consumer purchases it publicly while observed by others is yet unexplored. The present research investigates which associations consumers form when they see other consumers purchasing suboptimal foods....