A half-empty salad bag wilting in the fridge. Bread that turns stale before anyone remembers it.
Scenes like these are familiar to many households, yet the reasons behind everyday food waste may be more personal than people assume.
New evidence suggests that personality traits, not age, income, or household size, play a central role in how much food ends up in the bin.
Unexpected findings from Norwegian research
Households that believed they wasted little were often the worst offenders.
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Nofima, the Norwegian food research institute, reports that this pattern appeared repeatedly when analysing national survey data from Ipsos Norsk Monitor.
The researchers caution that many earlier studies unintentionally recruited participants already motivated to reduce waste, which may have hidden important behavioural differences.
Nofima notes that this 'skews the picture' and prompted a shift in focus toward personal values and everyday decision-making.
Three behavioural profiles
Rather than treating consumers as a single group, the team sorted households into three behavioural profiles based on planning habits, flexibility, and openness to new routines.
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- Habit changers: Early adopters of new habits, often environmentally motivated. They wasted the least.
- Practical bulk-buyers: Drawn to efficiency and large purchases. According to Nofima, they underestimated their own waste the most and generated the largest amounts.
- Structured planners: Detail-oriented and routine-driven. Their waste levels were steady, neither especially high nor low.
The researchers emphasize that these profiles cut across age and gender, suggesting a broader psychological pattern at work.
Confronted with reality
In a follow-up study reported by Forskning.no, researcher Kristine Svartebekk asked several hundred families to either track their food waste or assess expiry dates more accurately.
The results added nuance: the bulk-buying group, despite starting as the worst performers, achieved the largest reductions once confronted with their own measurements.
The researchers also note limitations: the findings are based on Norwegian consumers and may not automatically apply elsewhere.
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Sources: Forskning.no.
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