Too good to go: Acceptance factors of an application to combat food waste

Abstract

Food waste is a national and international scourge. It is estimated that, for each person in Portugal, between 20 and 30 kg of food are thrown away per year, and the theme of waste is common from the producer to the consumer, including the distributor, and that about 17% of the edible parts of food produced for human consumption are lost or wasted in Portugal. This research work consists of a quantitative and descriptive study in which 107 participants who resided in the national territory participated, to understand the role of IT in combating food waste. The results reflect that the population is aware of the dimension of the scourge of food waste in Portugal, knows several reduction strategies (including IT, such as the TGTG app) and identifies several advantages and disadvantages in the TGTG app, which are presented as points of improvement for a possible process of development.