The gaze of the gatekeeper: unpacking the multi-level influences and interactions of household food waste through a video elicitation study

Changing the household food waste related behaviours of consumers vital to the sustainable transformation of the global food system. This study utilised a video-elicitation methodology to explore the different factors that influence the food provisioning practices of the household dietary gatekeeper from a multi-level perspective, and to consider their food waste implications. Key findings included the central role of the household level in influencing food provisioning practices, the conditions imposed on households by the food industry, and the different trade-offs that are negotiated when shopping or cooking. Household food waste emerges from the gaps, cracks and compromises that dietary gatekeepers are forced to make between interacting factors at multiple levels. This study supports a move an exclusively individual level focus in food waste research to include greater consideration of the entire household, as well as the external conditions imposed upon them.