Wedding and wasting: exploring food plate waste in Tanzania

Abstract

Avoiding food waste benefits society, the economy, and the environment. In recent years, major efforts have been made to understand food discarded in the out-of-home eating contexts. However, most of studies have been conducted primarily in developed countries. Although the wedding business is one of the leading producers of out-of-home food, little is known about the amount of food wasted, particularly in emerging markets such as Tanzania. This study was designed to accomplish two goals. First, to examine guests’ perspectives of food waste in the wedding market. Second, to analyze factors influencing attendees' decisions to bring food and drinks home from weddings. Convenience and snowballing nonrandom sampling techniques were employed between November and December 2020 to recruit online 121 wedding attendees. The data was cleaned and exported to SPSS-26 for analysis from Google Drive as a spreadsheet file. The study's findings indicate that more than half of guests acknowledge that plate waste at weddings is a serious problem. However, when asked how much food they thought they left uneaten at a recent wedding, more than two-thirds reported leaving less than 10% of the meal served. Unfinished dishes were primarily returned due to the desire to consume everything on the buffet, the late dinner, and the fear of embarrassment. Nearly three-quarters (74%) were willing to bring drinks home rather than food (37%). The binary logistic regression technique identified two significant predictors of food take-home strategy: the presence of a food container and the guest's willingness to pay for wedding expenses. These findings underscore the critical nature of meal planning, packing, and delivery. Additionally, adequate education programs are necessary to raise awareness regarding food waste in the wedding businesses.