Analysis of Food Waste from survey and Intake 24

<p dir="ltr">This analysis uses the Intake 24 and Qualtrics survey. Intake 24 is a web-based 24-hour dietary recall system. The sample acquired is UK only and had quotas for Males and Females and different age groups (from 18 to 55+). The recruitment of this data was from 6 July 2024 to 8 November 2024. The total number of people in the survey was n=2662, the number of people who responded to the survey was n=2408, and the number of people excluded from the analysis was n=258 (more information on the excluded data section with the pivot table).</p><p dir="ltr">The data gathered for this are in the form of a check box after the question above, with 1 being checked and 0 unchecked. This cross-tab shows how many individuals reported each reason. The decision to cross-tabulate food insecurity and food waste was made to see the relationship between how food insecurity affects how much food people waste. The hypothesis is that there should be less waste as insecurity increases, as most would prefer to be much more conscious about waste when they cannot afford it. When looking at people who responded 91-100% waste, people who reported “almost every month” have 85/940 individuals compared to 158/1819 people from “never”. Interestingly, people who selected that they have never had to change their habit seem to waste much more small waste as 854/1819 people reported wasting 1-10%, especially compared to other groups where it would be almost double or quadruple the number of people. Food Insecurity 1 * Unable to buy food due to lack of money Most people cannot buy food due to the lack of money, with people who checked every month or more reported at 1262 of 5074. Additionally, individuals who checked that they cannot buy find almost every month being 997. Food Insecurity 1 * Unable to afford to eat healthy, balanced meals Findings show that out of 4576 respondents, 1073 reported that they could not afford healthy balanced meals almost every month, and 1223 reported every month or more. Moreover, sadly, only 366 of 4576 stated that they could afford to eat balanced meals. Food Insecurity 1* Skipped meals Concerningly, compared to other answers, only 365 of 3646 people reported that they never had to skip meals. This was especially true when 836 individuals reported having to skip meals almost every month, and 864 reported every month or more.</p><p dir="ltr">Conclusion Across these data, people also report that they do not suffer from food insecurity or that the cost of living doesn't affect them much. Because this is self-reported data, there could be people who lied or misunderstood the question and caused some inaccuracies in the data. What should also be considered is that many of these questionnaires might not be able to reach people who do not have access to devices as this questionnaire is done online, as shown by what browser they used. Because of this, people who would be much more affected by the cost of living crisis might be unable to access the internet due to poverty. Another issue that could affect the data is that respondents might have a chance of misinterpreting the question. When looking at the data for meal name * food thrown graph, many people are throwing away most of their food, but this could also be that they are being honest and reporting what they did. Analysing food waste from meal times and cooking/prep time shows that most people do not throw away massive amounts of food but rather approximately 1-10%. However, overall, there does seem to be a lot of food waste in certain sections. These data are more of a small sample who reported in each section, therefore not the actual full total of participants, making the number less jarring. Considering all these findings of food insecurity together suggests that the increased costs of food and living are heavily impacting people’s ability to afford food as most seem to report that they cannot afford food, access balanced meals, andskip meals due to price spikes. Therefore, we could assume that because of the increasing cost of living, people are increasingly less likely to be able to buy and/or afford food and get their required daily nutrition. According to Reynolds, C., Armstrong, B., Beacham, J., Evans, D., et al.’s (2024) research, they found that 78% of participants reported no leftovers from their food; they also found that the average amount of leftover food was 35%. These findings could explain why many respondents reported that they have no waste in this survey and how much they waste, as the majority of this dataset shows that many individuals seem to throw away at least 20-30% or more food waste.</p>