What influences consumer food waste behaviour when ordering food online? An application of the extended theory of planned behaviour

Figures & data

Figure 1. Conceptual model.

Table 1. The sources of constructs and the items.

Constructs	Items	Sources
OFD-food waste behaviour (FW behaviour)	How likely are you to throw away some portion of the following OFD food? (e.g., NOT fruit peel and cores, eggshells, and bones)	(Blešić et al., 2021; Zhang et al., 2022)
	Meat (e.g., chicken, duck, fish, pork, and beef)
	Vegetables
	Staple food  (e.g., rice, porridge, noodles, and bread)
	Soups and drinks
Intentions of not wasting food	I intend not to throw OFD food away	(Stancu et al., 2016)
	My goal is to not throw OFD food away
	I will try not to throw OFD food away
Subjective norms	People who are important to me would disapprove of me throwing food out	(Stefan et al., 2013; Visschers et al., 2016)
	People who are important to me would find my attempts to reduce the amount of food I waste unnecessary (R)
	People who are important to me would think it’s normal if I tried to reduce my food waste
Attitudes	Wasting OFD food is negative (D)	(Stancu et al., 2016)
	Wasting OFD food is foolish
	Loading the environment with my OFD food waste is harmful
	Loading the environment with my OFD food waste is negative
Perceived behavioural control (PBC)	Wasting my OFD food is avoidable	(Stancu et al., 2016)
	Loading the environment with my wasted OFD food is avoidable
	Not throwing out my OFD food is easy
Food-related factors (FrF)	If the OFD food is not at the right temperature (e.g. hot drink is too cold), I don’t consume it.	(Blešić et al., 2021)
	If I order more OFD food than I should eat, I don’t consume it.
	If I do not like some of the OFD food or ingredients, I don’t consume it.
	If I find the look of the OFD food is not as attractive as the demo picture, I don’t consume it.

Table 2. Sociodemographic characteristics of the participants (N = 520).

	N	Sample (%)
Gender
Male	260	50
Female	260	50
City
Shanghai (East)	130	25
Beijing (North)	130	25
Guangzhou & Shenzhen (South)	130	25
Chengdu & Chongqing (West)	78	15
Wuhan (Middle)	52	10
Age
18–25 years	197	38
26–30 years	126	24
31–35 years	91	18
36–40 years	54	10
41–45 years	29	6
46–50 years	13	3
50 years above	10	2
Marital status
Single	217	41.7
Married	226	43.5
Not married but has a partner	77	14.8
Living situation
One-person household	68	13.1
Couple only	92	17.7
Couple/Single with children aged under 16 years	143	27.5
Adults living with parent/s	162	31.2
Flatting/ Dormitories	53	10.2
Parent, spouse and kid	1	0.2
Spouse with kid (16 years above)	1	0.2
Education
Secondary school	15	2.9
Vocational School*	8	1.5
University degree	483	92.9
Postgraduate degree	14	2.7
Per Person Income Before Tax Per Month (CNY)
Less than 4000	59	11.3
4000–6999	81	15.6
7000–9999	140	26.9
10,000–14,999	141	27.1
15,000–19,999	68	13.1
20,000–29,999	21	4.0
30,000 and above	2	0.4
Prefer not to say	8	1.5

*Notes: Vocational school is a school offering instruction in one or more skilled or semiskilled trades or occupations, such as carpentry or plumbing.

Table 3. Factor loadings from Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and construct reliability.

Items and factors	Mean (SD)	β	t-Values	α	CR	AVE
OFD food waste behaviour (FW behaviour) Instruction: How likely are you to throw away some portion of the following OFD food? (e.g., NOT fruit peel and cores, eggshells, and bones).				0.904	0.906	0.708
Meat (e.g., chicken, duck, fish, pork, and beef)	2.28 (1.456)	0.842	*
Vegetables	2.49 (1.603)	0.894	25.614
Staple food (e.g., rice, porridge, noodles, and bread)	2.72 (1.550)	0.844	23.102
Soups and drinks	2.73 (1.659)	0.781	20.478
Scale: Never (1) to Every time (7)▵
Intentions of not wasting food Instruction: Please indicate your level of agreement with the following statements				0.827	0.829	0.618
I intend not to throw food away	4.87 (1.423)	0.785	*
My goal is to not throw food away	4.94 (1.412)	0.833	18.003
I will try not to throw food away	4.88 (1.411)	0.737	16.172
Scale: Strongly disagree (1) to Strongly agree (7)
Subjective Norms Instruction: Please indicate your level of agreement with the following statements				0.809	0.817	0.602
People who are important to me would disapprove of me throwing food out	5.75 (1.108)	0.868	14.043
People who are important to me would find my attempts to reduce the amount of food I waste unnecessary (R)	2.44 (1.226)	0.807	14.339
People who are important to me would think it’s normal if I tried to reduce my food waste	5.52 (1.185)	0.634	*
Scale: strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (7)
Attitudes Instruction: Please indicate your level of agreement with the following statements				0.857	0.871	0.697
Wasting OFD food is negative**	5.56 (1.192)
Wasting OFD food is foolish	4.79 (1.456)	0.637	*
Loading the environment with my OFD food waste is harmful	5.03 (1.427)	0.917	16.618
Loading the environment with my OFD food waste is negative	5.11 (1.362)	0.919	16.373
Scale: strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (7)
Perceived Behavioural Control (PBC) Instruction: Please indicate your level of agreement with the following statements				0.780	0.788	0.554
Wasting my OFD food is avoidable	5.26 (1.254)	0.722	12.834
Loading the environment with my wasted OFD food is avoidable	5.43 (1.122)	0.805	13.349
Not throwing out my OFD food is easy	5.19 (1.188)	0.701	*
Scale: strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (7)
Food-related factors (FrF) Instruction: Please indicate your level of agreement with the following statements				0.815	0.817	0.530
If the OFD food is not at the right temperature (e.g., hot drink is too cold), I don’t consume it.	4.02 (1.356)	0.602	*
If I order more OFD food than I should eat, I don’t consume it.	4.27 (1.352)	0.761	12.785
If I do not like some of the OFD food or ingredients, I don’t consume it.	4.37 (1.406)	0.820	12.775
If I find the look of the OFD food is not as attractive as the demo picture, I don’t consume it.	3.53 (1.374)	0.711	12.375
Scale: strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (7)

Notes: R-item was reversed; *Items fixed to 1 in CFA; **item removed from CFA; β-Std. Regression weights; α-Cronbach’s alpha; CR-composite reliability; AVE: average variance expected.

^▵ Never; Rarely, in less than 10% of my OFD orders; Occasionally, in about 30% of my OFD orders; Sometimes, in about 50% of my OFD orders; Frequently, in about 70% of my OFD orders; Usually, in about 90% of my OFD orders; Every time.

Table 4. Discriminant validity assessment (n = 520).

	Food	Attitudes	PBC	Subjective norms	Intention of not wasting food	FW behaviour
Food	0.728
Attitudes	−0.316	0.835
Subjective norms	−0.348	0.430	0.744
PBC	−0.327	0.388	0.567	0.776
Intentions of not wasting food	−0.464	0.514	0.538	0.416	0.786
FW behaviour	0.217	−0.159	−0.188	−0.144	−0.284	0.841

Table 5. The explanatory power of the original and the extended TPB model.

Fit indices	Original model (TPB)	Extended model
χ^2	340.334	466.663
df	96	157
χ^2/df	3.545	2.972
CFI	0.946	0.942
GFI	0.925	0.917
AGFI	0.893	0.889
TLI	0.932	0.930
SRMR	0.0662	0.0618
RMSEA	0.070	0.062
R^2	0.08	0.09

Table 6. Structural model results.

Hypothesised paths	Coefficients	t-Values	p-Value	Hypothesis
H1: Subjective norm → Intention (+)	0.055	0.941	0.347	Not supported
H2: Attitudes → Intention (+)	0.285	5.576	***	Supported
H3: PBC → Intention (+)	0.297	4.663	***	Supported
H4: PBC → FW behaviour (−)	−0.035	−0.560	0.575	Not supported
H5: Intention → FW behaviour (−)	−0.217	−3.212	0.001	Supported
H6: FrF → Intention (−)	−0.252	−4.888	***	Supported
H7: FrF → FW behaviour (+)	0.104	1.780	0.075	Not supported

Figure 2. The original structural model of food waste behaviour. Note: The model allows covariation between Subjective norms, Attitudes, and PBC. Goodness of fit indices: χ²/df = 3.545; CFI = 0.946; GFI = 0.925; AGFI = 0.893; TLI = 0.932; SRMR= 0.0662; RMSEA = 0.070; p < 0.05. ***p < 0.001. N = 520. R²: squared multiple correlations.

Figure 3. The extended structural model of food waste behaviour. Note: The model allows covariation between Subjective norms, Attitudes, PBC and FrF. Goodness of fit indices: χ²/df = 2.972; CFI = 0.942; GFI = 0.917; AGFI = 0.889; TLI = 0.930; SRMR= 0.0618; RMSEA = 0.062; p < 0.05. ***p < 0.001; **p < 0.01. N = 520. R² = squared multiple correlations.

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Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, M.M., upon reasonable request.