Essay: Correlation between food waste and different ethnic groups

Abstract
This study is done to find out the correlation between food waste and different ethnic groups. In order to have a new perspective investigating into people’s practices and its implications on how much food they waste, a quantitative research have been done on the students of Nottingham Trent University to see how much food do the different ethnic groups waste and what factors affect their actions. A sample size of 100 people have been taken for the study and the study has been conducted with 16 questionnaire for quantitative analysis. The relationship between different ethnic group practices and food waste generation have been concluded and discussed further in the report.
1. Introduction
1.1. Objective
It is believed that ethnicity have a correlation with different food wastage. Ethnicity has been seen as a category of identity by some social scientist and marketing researchers (Costa and Bamossy). By reviewing some earlier literatures and questionnaires filled by the students of Nottingham Trent University, it is expected to get more knowledge about the practices done by different ethnic groups regarding food waste. People from different regions and cultures have different habits. As culture differs from country to country, their eating and working preferences differs too. A research concludes that ethnic identification is related to food consumption practice (Bojanic and Xu, 2006). There is also a difference in the pattern of expenses done on food by different ethnic groups. These studies suggests that focus should not be on the single aspect of the identity by arguing ‘the relationship between consumption and identity should not be reduced to the level of individual “lifestyle choice” but related to wider structures of social interaction, especially concerned with gender relations and the family, with generational differences and competing constructions of race, place and nation’ (Jackson, 1999:36). There has not been lot of study done on this issue with majority of those research done were focused on America and Northern Europe. By reviewing the literature and previous research, efforts has been done to find more about our research questions. However, the information provided by survey are based on student perceptions.
1.2. Research Questions
To start with two questions are established by the group to guide the research.
An extensive literature research has been done on the questions to find the answers of the questions mentioned below.
a) Do different student ethnicities create different levels of food wastage?
b) Does the mode of consumption affect food waste?
1.3. Outline of Report
This report consists of 6 parts. In part 2 background of research topic has been discussed followed by research objectives and research questions. In next part, theoretical background of the relevant research has been discussed and summarized. The detailed research methodologies which was conducted during research has been explained in the part 3. The analysis of these research with the help of Microsoft Excel as quantitative method has been presented in part 4. And then in part 5, discussion has been done on outcome of the study. Conclusion and reliability have been discussed in this part.
2. Literature Review.
2.1. Food waste by ethnicity study
Food is very integral part of our lives, from providing energy to survive to help in social interactions. Food also show our identity and lifestyle by the fact how a person consume food (Valentine, 1999). Food wastage is also related to food consumption. People in some countries prefer to cook at home more and in other countries, they don’t. On one hand, people from one country believes eating outside is not healthy and avoid outside food while on other hand, lifestyle of a country is so fast moving that they prefer eating out, in way to work and not cook home. These people are from different background and it is their identity. Just like that, their food wastage practices can also be linked to their ethnicity. Some research argues that young people don’t manage the food waste in better way and the people’s behaviour is enhanced by their education level. Research suggests that refrigeration is the major factor of our food system (Garnett, 2007; Hand & Shove, 2007). Evans (2012: p. 41) argued in his research that “food waste is a sort of mundane consequence of domestic practices that are socially and materially organized”. In some research projects, relationship between shopping and identity has been a major subject (Jackson et al, 2006; Miller et al, 2005). People from different areas of world and ethnicity have different views regarding the problem of food wastage and this knowledge they have shown how much they care about wasting food in their life. There are some studies which collected data to know about the food wastage done by people in different countries. Some of them are waste done at houses and some are of wastage done in restaurants. The avoidable food waste of about 4kg/week was wasted in average households in Sweden, UK and Norway (Quested and Johnson 2009). It was found that 40% of food wasted in UK occurred because households used to prepare and serve more food than what they could consume (Quested and Johnson, 2009). There was a behavioural study which was done by Cox and Downing in 2007 in which they found that several reasons for food loss were ‘lack of plan’, ‘buying too much’, ‘don’t know what to do with it’. It is good to look into the students’ perspective of food waste related practices from different ethnicity studying together in university.
2.2 Social practice theory
To find out the relationship between people from different ethnicity and their food waste practices along with which mode of consumption they prefer and if this affects the waste or not , social practice theory can be taken as base. But to begin with, we need to know what is the social practice theory. According to Hargreaves (2011: p. 83):
“some theorists focus on the various components or elements that make up a practice (e.g. Reckwitz, 2002; Shove & Pantzar, 2005), others on the connections between these elements (e.g. Schatzki, 2002; Warde, 2005), and still others on the position of practices as a bridge between individuals’ lifestyles and broader socio-technical systems of provision (e.g. Spaargaren and Van Vliet, 2000)”.
Most of social practice scholars suggests that while influencing social practice, people don’t play a central role, but are actually carrying a developed practice. (e.g. Hargreaves, 2011; Røpke, 2009). Thus, by applying this theory, it would be better to trace the long history of food culture.
3. Methodology
3.1. Study Area
As an experimental research project to know the relation between food waste and different ethnic groups, the study area of this report is limited to the Nottingham Trent University’s students. NTU has more than 28,000 students studying over 4 campuses. For this research, students at the city campus of Nottingham Trent University has been chosen. These students are from all over the world living in student accommodations, private housing and flat shares. Some of them live alone, others in groups with friends or family.
3.2. Quantitative method
The method chosen for this research project was quantitative method. In order to collect required information from the students, the link of an online questionnaire with title ‘Food waste among NTU post-graduate students’ was prepared on website ‘qualtrics.com’ (Appendix 2), was sent to the students on their student email ID (Appendix 1) and also forwarded on WhatsApp.
The research group chose the questionnaires on web as they can be very helpful when the research topic is socially embarrassing and people would not talk about them openly in person. Participants email addresses were gathered in advance. Their frequency of replying back is very hard to control (Robson, 2011: p. 190), and it has risk of low response rates (Robson, 2011: p. 256). Nonetheless, conducting web survey via email address is very user friendly and of high efficiency. Questionnaires were sent in last week of November and data was collected till December’s first week. 80% of the population belonged to the age group 20-25 years.
The question asked were mostly Multichoice Questions (10/16). One question was a single text type. Two slider based question was put in questionnaire to know about how much food they waste at home and outside on scale of 0-100. Despite sending the invitation to lot of students, 104 students participated in this study. But only 98 sent back the completed questionnaire All of them were postgraduates studying in NTU.
Figure 1 shows the data of how much knowledge do the people with different ethnicity have about problem of food waste. The questions were regarding two issues – food waste at home and outside at restaurants. Two matrix table questions with agree-disagree scale were also added asking participants to grade the reasons for wasting food. The respondents could grade the following 4 reasons of household waste.
a. I didn’t enjoy the food.
b. I over purchased the groceries and will not be able to finish it all.
c. I’ve cooked more food than I was able to finish.
d. The food has expired and will not be eaten.
And the following reasons were provided for food waste at restaurants.
a. I didn’t enjoy the food.
b. I was not hungry enough to complete it.
c. The quantity served was too much.
d. I was in a hurry and I did not have enough time to finish it.
There was also a question in which respondents could tell what do they do with eaten food
3.3 Limitations
There was very low response rate to questionnaire. Though it was expected to be low as student email address and social network are passive of communication. Students were not willingly helpful in forwarding the invitation message to other students. On the other hand, as the time and resources were limited, the sampling can be regarded as a biased. Moreover, the samples were of similar characteristics as it was a campus-based case study.
4. Findings
After analyzing the data of questionnaire, it can be seen that major part of sample population is of age group 20-25 which is 80.2%. Population consist of 48 male students and 52 Female students. Figure 2 shows the breakdown of population age with their gender. All of these students are postgraduate students studying in different schools of University.
Age Group 15-20 21-25 26-30 31 +
1 Male 42.86% 3 51.85% 42 27.27% 3 0.00% 0
2 Female 57.14% 4 48.15% 39 72.73% 8 50.00% 1
3 Other/ Prefer not to say 0.00% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 0 50.00% 1
Total Total 7 Total 81 Total 11 Total 2
When it comes to living with friends 44.55% of total population lives with friends and 40.59% are living alone. Only 14.85% students are living with their family. As a result, it can be said that this study is not extremely biased as these students study different subjects and live at different places despite, they are student of one university.
Nevertheless, regarding knowledge of the food waste, only 66.34% students say that they worry about food waste and try to avoid it while 4.95% of the population states that they don’t care about food waste and don’t consider it a crucial problem. When it comes to how much money they spend on groceries and in restaurants, it can be seen that 33.66% people spend 25-50GBP per week on groceries while when it comes to restaurants 26.73% people spend same amount. But the major of 35.64% people spend 0-25 GBP per week in restaurants. According to Figure 2 & 3, it can be noted that maximum food wasted at home ranges between 9%-19% with standard deviation of 14.87 while the maximum food wasted at restaurants ranges between 10%-20% with standard deviation of 14.85%. This suggests that food wasted at both places come around the same amount.
54.5% of this sample population eat 1 meal at restaurants while 40.59% of population eat 2 meals at home. Though the reasons for such waste of food cannot be found out in very details but the common answers which the respondents gave to question about why they do waste is that the food expired with 40.8% people. On the other hand, in restaurants, 31.25% people said they left food because they didn’t like that. In addition, 38.04% of people throw the food away while 29.45% people try to finish it off instead of throwing. 16.56% give leftovers to homeless while only 2.45% do the compost. This observation somewhat matches the waste management pyramid (EU, 2008).
5. Discussion
The main aim of this study is to learn about the relationship between ethnicity and food related practices. Quantitative research method was used to conduct the study. Regarding objectives, two research questions were set. During analysis, it was found that there is no strong dominant reason for generation of food waste in this population of different ethnic groups. They, according to figures, waste food because of many other reasons which are stated in findings. Before conducting this study, the stated research questions suggested that there is relation between food wasting practices and ethnicity of people. And consumption mode also affects the food wastage. But after looking at this data and facts collected with help of survey, it is now clear that ethnicity has no correlation with food waste generated by students despite the fact that food eating habits are directly related to ethnicity. Same applies to the awareness of food waste. Some of previous studies also found the same studies (e.g. Barr, 2000; Defra, 2009). It may not be possible to put all the elements to individuals food related practices as there is very high diversity in food related practices of different people. Thus, the food waste generated in this study can be so varied (0.1 to 10 kg/head) among sample population. It can be concluded in this study that people living alone generate more food waste than others. The reasons for such finding in previous studies are food in large quantity is often available cheap or recipes usually cater quantity for group rather than individual (WRAP, 2013). In the report ‘The food we waste’ (WRAP, 2007) on UK households stated main food wastage reasons include buying perishable food, sensitivity to food, poor storage and management. Similar findings are seen in this study. Nevertheless, this data also confirms the suggestions made by Cox and Downing (2007) in their behavioural study. Regarding the answers which came for the research questions, neither the ethnicity is corelated to food waste nor the mode of consumption. Some people spent more than others on food but still waste less than the people spending little on food.
On the other hand, this case study provides understanding about food related practices of people to a certain extent as it is done in a university. If a research is done on large scale including diversified food related practices, much more information and knowledge might be provided regarding subject. However, difficulty in research conduction will also increase. Lastly, in perspective of social practice to reduce food waste, appropriate policies has been suggested by this study. However, further studies will be needed for the application and effectiveness of suggested policies.
Bibliography
Barr, S., 2002. Household Waste in Social Perspective: Values, Attitudes, Situation and Behaviour.
Bojanic, D. and Xu, Y. (2006). An investigation of acculturation and the dining-out behavior of Chinese living in the United States. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 25(2), pp.211-226.
Costa, J. A., Bamossy, G. J, (1995). Perspectives on Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Cultural Identity’, in J. A. Costa and G. J. Bamossy (eds.) Marketing in a Multicultural World, Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Cultural Identity, pp. 3-25.
Cox, J. and Downing, P., 2007. Food behaviour consumer research: Quantitative phase. Wrap, Banbury UK.[Online][WWW document]. URL http://www. wrap. org. uk/downloads/Food_behaviour_consumer_ research_quantitative_jun_2007. 0a80ed7d, 6393.
Epubs.surrey.ac.uk. (2008). Ethnicity and Consumption: south Asian food shopping patterns in Britain, 1947-1975. [online] Available at: http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/164605/1/Hamlett%20et%20al%20Ethnicity%20and%20Consumption.pdf [Accessed 31 Dec. 2018].
Eurlex.europa.eu. (2008). [online] Available at: http://eurlex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2008:312:0003:0030:en:PDF [Accessed 3 Jan. 2019].
Evans, D., 2012. Beyond the throwaway society: Ordinary domestic practice and a sociological approach to household food waste. Sociology, 46 (1), pp.41-56.
Garnett, T., 2007. Food refrigeration: What is the contribution to greenhouse gas emissions and how might emissions be reduced. Food Climate Research Network, University of Surrey.
Hand, M., & Shove, E., 2007. Condensing practices: Ways of living with a freezer. Journal of Consumer Culture, 7 (1), pp.79-104.
Hargreaves, T., 2011. Practice-ing behaviour change: Applying social practice theory to pro-environmental behaviour change. Journal of consumer culture, 11(1), pp.79-99.
Jackson, P. (1999). Consumption and identity: The cultural politics of shopping. European Planning Studies, 7(1), pp.25-39.
Jackson, P., Del Aguila, R.P., Clarke, I., Hallsworth, A., De Kervenoael, R. and Kirkup, M., 2006. Retail restructuring and consumer choice 2. Understanding consumer choice at the household level. Environment and Planning A, 38(1), pp.47-67.
Jackson, P.A., Rowlands, M. and Miller, D., 2005. Shopping, place and identity. Routledge.
Kai Leung L., (2013). How Social Practices cause Food Waste Generation? Case study: Students of the UEA. [online] Available at: https://www.uea.ac.uk/documents/541248/10788799/Law+Kai.pdf/c39bcd12-c5c0-431f-8e33-a3daaa5fb0be [Accessed 21 Dec. 2018]
Quested, T. and Johnson, H. (2009). Household food and drink waste in the UK. Banbury: Wastes & Resources Action Programme (WRAP).
Quested, T., 2013. The Milk Model: Simulating Food Waste in the Home. WRAP
Reckwitz, A., 2002. Toward a Theory of Social Practices: A Development in Culturalist Theorizing. European Journal of Social Theory, 5, pp.243-263.
Robson, C., 2011. Real world research: A resource for users of social research methods in applied settings 3rd edition.
Røpke, I., 2009. Theories of practice – new inspiration for ecological economic studies on consumption. Ecological Economics, 68 (10), pp.2490-2497.
Schatzki, T.R., 2002. The site of the social: A philosophical account of the constitution of social life and change. Penn State Press.
Shove, E. & Pantzar, M., 2005. Consumers, Producers and Practices: Understanding the invention and reinvention of Nordic walking. Journal of Consumer Culture, 5, pp.43 – 64.
Spaargaren, G., & Van Vliet, B., 2000. Lifestyles, consumption and the environment: The ecological modernisation of domestic consumption. Environmental Politics, 9 (1), pp.50- 76.
Valentine, G., 1999. Eating in: Home, consumption and identity. Sociological Review, 47 (3), pp.491-524.
Warde, A., 2005. Consumption and theories of practice. Journal of consumer culture, 5(2), pp.131-153.
Williams, H., Wikström, F., Otterbring, T., Löfgren, M. and Gustafsson, A. (2019). Reasons for household food waste with special attention to packaging. [online] Brage.bibsys.no. Available at: https://brage.bibsys.no/xmlui/handle/11250/93524 [Accessed 16 Jan. 2019].
WRAP (2007). The food we waste. WRAP.
Appendices
Appendix 1- template of E-Mail Invitation
Dear all,
Could you please take 1 minute out of your day to answer our survey as it will really help us with our university research project. Thank you for your time and effort.
https://qtrial2018q4az1.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3yed5ay2nPwqdFj
Kind Regards,
Business Research Group 1
Appendix 2- Template of Questionnaire
1. What is your gender?
a. Male
b. Female
c. Other/ Prefer not to say
2. What is your current age?
a. 15-20
b. 21-25
c. 26-30
d. 31 +
3. What are you currently studying?
4. What is your ethnicity?
a. Caucasian
b. African or African American
c. Asian
d. Other
5.Are you familiar with the term ‘food waste’ ?
a. Yes. I worry about food waste and I try to avoid it whenever I can.
b. I am aware about the problems associated with the food waste but I don’t think I will change my behaviour in the near future.
c. I was interested to the issue of food waste in the past, but now i don’t care.
d. I don’t consider food waste as a crucial problem.
6. Who do you live with?
a. Family
b. Friends
c. Alone
7.How often do you grocery shop a week?
a. 0 times
b. 1 time
c. 2 times
d. 3 times
e. 4 times
f. 5+ times
8. How much money do you usually spend on groceries weekly?
a. £0 – £25
b. £25 – £50
c. £50 – £75
d. £75 – £100
e. £100 +
9. How many meals do you usually eat at home daily?
a. 0 meals
b. 1 meal
c. 2 meals
d. 3 meals
e. 4 meals
f. 5+ meals
10. How much food do you usually waste on average at home? (Per meal)
0 – 100 % scale
Percentage
11. To which degree do you agree with the following statements regarding your food waste at home?
Strongly Agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly Disagree
I didn’t enjoy the food.
I over purchased the groceries and will not be able to finish it all.
I’ve cooked more food than I was able to finish.
The food has expired and will not be eaten.
12. How much money do you spend on food in restaurants? (Per Week)
a. £0 – £25
b. £25 – £50
c. £50 – £75
d. £75 – £100
e. £100 +
13. How many meals do you usually eat at restaurants daily?
a. 0 meals
b. 1 meal
c. 2 meals
d. 3 meals
e. 4 meals
f. 5+ meals
14. How much food do you usually waste on average at restaurants? (Per meal)
0 – 100 % Scale
Percentage
15. To which degree do you agree with the following statements regarding your food waste at restaurants?
Strongly Agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly Disagree
I didn’t enjoy the food.
I was not hungry enough to complete it.
The quantity served was too much.
I was in a hurry and I did not have enough time to finish it.
16. What do you generally do with uneaten food? (You can tick more than one answer)
a. Throw it away
b. Try to finish it off
c. Give it to the homeless
d. Feed animals
e. I do compost
Appendix – 3 Data Charts
Appendix – 4 Data Tables
Field Minimum Maximum Mean Standard Deviation Variance Count
How much money do you usually spend on groceries weekly? 1 5 2.44 1.15 1.32 101
Table- 2 Expenses done on groceries shopping.
Answer % Count
1 Family 14.85% 15
2 Friends 44.55% 45
3 Alone 40.59% 41
Total 100% 101
Table- 3 statistics of living status
Field Minimum Maximum Mean Std Deviation Variance Count
How many meals do you usually eat at home daily? 1 6 3.34 0.96 0.92 101
How many meals do you usually eat at restaurants daily? 1 6 2.19 0.94 0.89 101
Table- 4 number of meals at home and restaurants.
Field Minimum Maximum Mean Std Deviation Variance Count
Home 0 100 18.73 14.87 221.17 98
Restaurants 0 100 15.4 14.85 220.62 99
Table- 5 Average food wasted at home & restaurants
Field Minimum Maximum Mean Std Deviation Variance Count
1 I didn’t enjoy the food. 6 10 7.63 1.26 1.58 98
2 I over purchased the groceries and will not be able to finish it all. 6 10 7.78 1.14 1.3 98
3 I’ve cooked more food than I was able to finish. 6 10 7.67 1.16 1.34 98
4 The food has expired and will not be eaten. 6 10 7.15 1.1 1.21 98
Table- 6 Reasons for waste of food at home
Field Minimum Maximum Mean Std Deviation Variance Count
I was in a hurry and I did not have enough time to finish it. 6 10 8.01 1.25 1.57 95
The quantity served was too much. 6 10 7.65 1.22 1.48 94
I was not hungry enough to complete it. 6 10 7.86 1.14 1.3 92
I didn’t enjoy the food. 6 10 7.63 1.31 1.71 96
Table- 7 Reasons for waste of food at restaurants
.