Frozen food purchasing and home freezing of fresh foods: associations with household food waste

Abstract

Purpose

Freezing extends the shelf life of food. Home freezing of fresh foods and the purchase of frozen foods have been advocated as approaches to reduce food waste in US households. This paper discusses how commonly US households apply these practices, quantifies frozen food waste and relates these practices to food waste.

Design/methodology/approach

We add questions to the summer 2022 wave of the US Household Food Waste Tracking Survey. The novel survey data provide important baseline information and household behaviours, such as food waste, home freezing of fresh food and the purchase of frozen foods. We analyse the association among these behaviours from more than 1,000 US households.

Findings

We find that US household wastes about 26 g per person per week of food that was once frozen, which is about 6% of all household food waste. The finding indicates that a small portion of food waste in US households comes from frozen food. Vegetables and meats are the most commonly discarded frozen foods. Among the frozen items reported as discarded, about 30% were purchased as frozen rather than purchased fresh and then frozen at home by the consumer and about 30% more were reported as discarded from the refrigerator rather than directly from the freezer. The findings are important for informing strategies to reduce household food waste.

Research limitations/implications

While the data provide important baseline information and correlate the use of freezing with lower waste levels, more work is needed to understand if interventions encouraging frozen food purchase or home freezing would reduce household food waste.

Originality/value

We provide unique, detailed information about the quantity of frozen food waste in US households and the relationships between consumer food waste and the practices of frozen food purchasing and home freezing.

Citation

Xu, L., Li, R. and Roe, B. (2024), "Frozen food purchasing and home freezing of fresh foods: associations with household food waste", British Food Journal, Vol. 126 No. 12, pp. 4260-4276. https://doi.org/10.1108/BFJ-02-2024-0147