The objective of this thesis is to advance our understanding of how consumers use date
labels and the implications of date-label use for household dairy product waste. It does this
by investigating the effect of psychological, social, and contextual factors on date-label use
and willingness to consume dairy products in relation to the expiry date. These effects are
tested using structural equation models and survey data gathered from 548 Scottish
consumers.
The results of this study make two contributions to the literature on date-labelling and
food waste. The first contribution is primarily theoretical. By improving our understanding of
how consumers use date labels and the implications of date-label use for household dairy
product waste, it supports the contention that food waste is best understood, not as a
behaviour, but as the outcome of multiple behaviours. It argues that in order to understand
why food waste is created, it is important to identify the factors that affect the individual
behaviours that lead to it, such as date-label use, and how these behaviours relate to one
another. These results also have implications for communications and campaigning around
food waste reduction.
The second contribution has policy relevance. It provides evidence of the likely limited
effect of increasing the number of dairy products labelled with a best-before date rather than
a use-by date on food waste. This is an approach recently proposed to reduce household
food waste. It finds that better knowledge of the best-before date is associated with a higher
willingness to consume products after the best-before date has passed. However, perceived
risks about consuming products beyond their best-before date, including not just safety but
quality, freshness, and social acceptability, appear to interact with date-label knowledge and
dampen its influence. It argues that to be effective, any changes in date-labelling should be
accompanied by communication that goes beyond improving date-label knowledge, and
addresses the multifaceted nature of related risk perceptions and conceptions of date-label
trust