Healthy but also traceable: consumer choices for traits of food waste-reducing innovations

In developed nations, consumers at household level waste significant amount of food. This food wastage stems from inability to maintain food shelf-life, which is attributed to differences in awareness and preferences, and use of packaging and storage technologies. While there are packaging technologies that enhance food preservation, consumers have health-related concerns with many of them. In this study, we examine consumer choices and willingness to pay (WTP) for food status traits such as natural preservation, freshness and traceability that are derived from microbiomes, active packaging, and smart printed QR code innovations. These innovations enhance natural preservation, freshness, and traceability, respectively and thereby reduce food waste. We used these indicators as attributes to implement choice experiments on four case-specific products across three European Union (EU) countries involving a large number of consumers selected randomly. Driven by the utility attributed to the packaging technologies' ability to ensure natural preservation and maintain freshness of food, we find consumers’ strong preferences for the innovations. Especially, consumers place higher value on active packaging and temperature indicators that monitor food freshness, especially for sea bass and pork meat. Also, consumers place high values on traceability and natural preservation of all case food items, highlighting the importance of smart printed QR codes and microbiomes. Marginal WTP estimates suggest divergent preferences for the innovations. These heterogeneities stem from group-wise differences and individual heterogeneity in consumer characteristics where more educated and higher income consumer groups were estimated to be more likely to prefer and pay for the innovations. • Preferences for new food waste-reducing innovations was explored. • Choice experiment on four products was implemented to elicit preferences. • Strong preference for innovations that enhance traceability & freshness is documented. • Education and income are sources of preference heterogeneity. • Consumers prefer local products.