Tackling Food Waste: The Role of Trust in Online Food Sharing Platforms

Global numbers of food lost and wasted from farm to fork are alarming with Switzerlandwasting 90 KG of edible foodstuff per year and person. Online sharing platforms have been advocated to reduce avoidable food waste at the consumers’ level. Such platforms, however, are only used scarcely. Building on previous studies of Couchsurfing, Airbnb and Uber, this work is led by the assumption that people’s levels of trust positively impact their intention to share food online. The identification of trust-enhancing measurements in online food sharing may therefore motivate a more frequent use thereof and, in turns, contribute to a reduction of food waste .Understood as a multidimensional construct with the relevant dimensions depending on the context, trust in online food sharing is conceptualized into the dimensions trust in peer, platform, and product. A first quantitative research part on the foodsharing.network Zurichreveals that trust in platform has a medium and trust in product a weak positive influence on users’ intention to share online. Contrary to previous studies, trust in peer has no influence at all. Overall, the results imply that trust has only a weak influence on people’s intention to sharewhereas convenience considerations are the greatest barrier to online food sharing....