Basis Social carried out behavioural insights research to inform a communications campaign aimed to promote sustainable food behaviours in London households – namely reducing food waste and the consumption of meat and dairy.

Challenge

London wastes 1.4m tonnes of food each year, of which 64% is generated by households. That’s equivalent to £600 of food wasted per year, per household. As the cost-of-living and climate crisis continue, reducing food waste is a great way for households to save money and the planet.

Meat, dairy products, and eggs contribute more to London’s emissions share than any other food types. This is despite meat’s mass share of food consumed being only 5%.

Approach

We engaged 23 individuals in London. Each participant completed 1-week of daily photo and video exercises (including a food diary and pictures of what they threw away) using a mobile app (Fieldnotes) to capture their ‘typical’ food behaviours. They then completed a 1-hour in-depth interview. The interviews were tailored to each participant following analysis of their behaviours to help overcome the say-do gap / social desirability bias and to identify influences on behaviours. We also completed desk research and spoke with 7 experts to explore current research, insights, and efforts addressing food waste and sustainable diets.

Impact

It should come as no surprise that money remains one of the primary drivers of food behaviours among participants, especially as the cost-of-living crisis continues to impact many people in the UK. Convenience, health, and taste/pleasure were also very important when participants were discussing purchasing and preparing foods. And of course, participants with children had particular challenges to face when it comes to food waste and sustainable eating – they overall want to ensure they provide for their families first and foremost, they  are likely to be especially time poor, and they may have fussy eaters to manage.

Food Waste

Food waste is a result of many different behaviours and factors influencing them. Each household and individual person may waste for different reasons, across what we are calling the ‘Food Journey’. This includes food planning, shopping, storing ingredients, prepping/cooking, eating, storing leftovers, and eating leftovers. For example, people may waste because they over-prepare during the prepping stage, or because they stored ingredients in a way that quickly lost freshness.

Our research indicates that one the biggest opportunities for reducing food waste is to focus on encouraging and enabling better food planning that allows for the flexibility of knowing that ‘life will get in the way’. Food planning influences all other stages of the food journey, and therefore improving this stage provides a big opportunity to help individuals waste less food overall. Participants were also generally open to improving their food planning.

Sustainable Diets

Diets are very personal and are heavily influenced by culture and relationship to food. Participants discussed how health, pleasure and price were big factors in what they chose to eat, with sustainability using falling lower on their priority list, even for vegans and vegetarians (who were mainly motivated by animal welfare or health). Interestingly. participants associated plant-based foods with meat alternatives, rather than foods like vegetables and pulses. Meat alternatives were seen as more expensive and less healthy, due to being seen as more processed.

There is an opportunity to encourage a shift to plant-based foods by providing ways to cook plant-based that help save money, are healthy, tasty, and convenient. For example, by using frozen or tinned vegetables (with the added bonus of reducing food waste). Another way to encourage a shift to sustainable diets is by focusing on making meat go further, rather than replacing meat altogether. For example, adding pulses to (meat-based) Bolognese, chili, curry, etc.