Abstract:

The challenge of reducing Food Waste (FW) is a complex social, economic and environmental problem, placed in the epicentre of the EU 2020 priorities’ agenda. In fact, FW is a core issue, as these lines are written, since 2014 has been designated by the European Parliament as 'European Year Against Food Waste’. The publicity and focus of EU on FW is far from unjustified, since FW can have a huge negative impact on the modern world, as it directly conflicts with important societal and environmental actions, such as the United Nations' ‘Zero Hunger’ initiative and European Union’s unilateral commitment to reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions by 20%, until 2020. Apart from the obvious and infuriating paradox of scrapping end slices and crusts of sandwich loaves and rejecting fruits for being ‘wrongly’ sized or shaped (Tristram, 2009), while 870 million people in the world, or one in eight, are suffering from chronic undernourishment (FAO, 2012), FW also means energy, water and land having been consumed in vein and resources spent to manage waste which could be avoided, ergo FW has also a significant negative economic impact. On the other hand, the overweight and obesity (O&O) problem may, at a first glance, seem to be a countermeasure against FW, since one can think that eating more results in less food wastage. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Thoughtless consumer behavior and well-organized mass media marketing strategies from food companies have led to increasing portion sizes causing both children and adults to eat more food and to a global change of food culture glamorizing quick and tasty snacks, packed with sugar and salt. Ironically, food waste also leads to less availability and increased prices of healthy food for many, which also contributes to obesity by forcing consumption of highly processed and energy dense food, easily available to those living in developed countries. The proposed research fully acknowledges the significance of these problems combined and aims to contribute to the two underlying EU primary short term actions (European Parliament, 2013) against both FW and O&O, which are increasing consumer awareness and advance early childhood education.

In doing so, the first steps of empirical and technological research are presented in this paper, towards the development of a mobile social application aiming to engage, activate and educate primary household decision makers, such as traditional housewives and modern, time-starved working women and their young children to join forces against the FW and O&O problems, the latter directly connected with food waste by means of overbuying, over-consumption and greedy food portions serving at the consumer level. Research includes an introduction on the FW & OO problems, followed by an empirical study, in the form of a survey, on FW and consumer behavior of a sample of 500 households in Greece. Next, the first steps towards the development of a Mobile Application to Tackle the Food Waste and Obesity Social Challenges are presented. The ultimate objective of the research is to provide women and their young children with all the necessary information and tools to enhance their ability to conduct responsible and socially sensitive consumer behavior against FW and O&O.

Acknowledgement:
This research has been co‐financed by the European Union (European Social Fund – ESF) and Greek national funds through the Operational Program "Education and Lifelong Learning" of the National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF) ‐ Research Funding Program: THALES. Investing in knowledge society through the European Social Fund.

Keywords:

Food Waste, Overweight & Obesity, Social Challenges, Mobile Applications, Survey.