Consumers’ purchase intention of suboptimal food using behavioral reasoning theory: A food waste reduction strategy

Food waste has attained considerable attention globally during the last decade, owing to its environmental and social impacts. Consumers’ low preference to purchase edible fruits and vegetables with unusual appearance, discoloration, etc., technically referred to as suboptimal food, significantly contributes to food waste. Consumers are more likely to reject suboptimal food while purchasing food, resulting in unnecessary food waste. However, consumers’ perceptions of whether or not to purchase suboptimal food are still unidentified. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to explore the factors influencing as motivators (reason for) and barriers (reason against) in explaining the consumers’ purchase intention toward suboptimal food using Behavioral Reasoning Theory (BRT). This study conducts a questionnaire survey from 650 consumers using a purposive sampling method. The Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) is used to analyze the data. The findings support the proposed theoretical framework and confirm its robustness in exploring the factors influencing the consumers’ purchase intention of suboptimal food. The findings suggest that the factors including values, reason for (environmental concern and price consciousness), reason against (quality inferior and unappealing appearance), and attitude have direct and indirect influence on consumers’ purchase intention of suboptimal food. Based on the results, the study highlights several insights for policymakers, marketers, business professionals, and practitioners to promote suboptimal food in order to reduce food waste.