Managing Food Waste Behaviour in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: Investigating the Role of Social Marketing

Abstract

Food waste is a significant problem in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Approximately SAR 13 billion worth of food is wasted annually in the KSA. From moral, social and economic perspectives, it is essential to reduce the wastage of food. Although studies have identified the amount of food waste in the KSA, there is a lack of research on why people in the KSA waste food; therefore, it is difficult to design efficient intervention programs to reduce food waste. This research investigated the key factors that influenced the food waste behaviour of the people of the KSA. Based on the literature review, it was hypothesised that religiosity, hedonic value, frugality, and trait cynicism are the antecedents of moral disengagement impacting the food waste behaviour in the KSA. A food waste behaviour model was proposed with moral disengagement included at the model’s centre. The study further posits that an intervention strategy in the form of a social marketing campaign focused on lowering moral disengagement reduced people’s food waste behaviour. This study applied a pre-test/post-test control group experimental design with social marketing campaign as the treatment. A purposive sampling method was used to select participants from the KSA. The social marketing campaign (developed by the researcher) was used in the experiment and ran for six months. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to analyse the experimental data. The outcomes demonstrated the effectiveness of the social marketing campaign in improving the food waste behaviour of people of the KSA. The outcomes established the foundation for designing efficient intervention programs in the future. The pilot and main study results highlighted the confirmation of the structural modelling and assessment of the hypotheses. Partial least squares (PLS)-SEM path modelling was used to emphasise the relationships between the value and beliefs (religiosity and hedonic value) and psychological traits (frugality and trait cynicism) with food waste behaviour. This study contributed to the knowledge of food waste behaviour by testing a newly proposed food waste behaviour model in the KSA.