Of Waste and Waists: The Effect of Plate Material on Food Consumption and Waste
Abstract
Two lab studies and three field studies indicate that plate disposability influences the amount of food wasted. The first lab study indicates that more food served on disposable (i.e., paper) plates is wasted than when the same food is served on permanent (i.e., hard plastic) plates. Study 2 employs an implicit association test (IAT) to confirm that disposable plates are strongly associated with behavior to stop eating while, simultaneously, permanent plates are more strongly associated with a keep eating behavior. Three field studies (3A, 3B, and 3C) indicate that this effect maintains when instead of being served a fixed quantity of food, participants select the amount and type of food.
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Serving food on disposable plates results in greater food waste and less food consumption, whereas serving food on permanent plates results in the reverse.
“one study examining the effect of plate material on food consumption revealed that serving food on disposable plates results in greater food waste and less food consumption, whereas the reverse is true when serving food on permanent plates (Williamson, Block, and Keller 2016).”
From Using Healthy Defaults in Walt Disney World Restaurants to Improve Nutritional Choices (2016) · cites this paper as Williamson, Block, and Keller 2016
Cites
Harrar, V., & Spence, C. (2013) · Flavour · doi:10.1186/2044-7248-2-21 · Cited by 124 · see citing works
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Reynolds, C., Goucher, L., Quested, T., Bromley, S., Gillick, S., Wells, V. K., Evans, D., Koh, L., Carlsson Kanyama, A., Katzeff, C., et al. (2019) · Food Policy · doi:10.1016/j.foodpol.2019.01.009 · Cited by 487 · see citing works
Block, L. G., Keller, P. A., Vallen, B., Williamson, S., Birau, M. M., Grinstein, A., Haws, K. L., LaBarge, M. C., Lamberton, C., Moore, E. S., et al. (2016) · Journal of Public Policy & Marketing · doi:10.1509/jppm.15.132 · Cited by 231 · see citing works
Self-citationCall for testing interventions to prevent consumer food waste
Stöckli, S., Niklaus, E., & Dorn, M. (2018) · Resources, Conservation and Recycling · doi:10.1016/j.resconrec.2018.03.029 · Cited by 230 · see citing works
Using Healthy Defaults in Walt Disney World Restaurants to Improve Nutritional Choices
Peters, J., Beck, J., Lande, J., Pan, Z., Cardel, M., Ayoob, K., & Hill, J. O. (2016) · Journal of the Association for Consumer Research · doi:10.1086/684364 · Cited by 86 · see citing works
Plate waste of adults in the United States measured in free-living conditions
Roe, B. E., Apolzan, J. W., Qi, D., Allen, H. R., & Martin, C. K. (2018) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0191813 · Cited by 43 · see citing works
Making Small Food Units Seem Regular: How Larger Table Size Reduces Calories to Be Consumed
Davis, B., Payne, C. R., & Bui, M. (2016) · Journal of the Association for Consumer Research · doi:10.1086/684527 · Cited by 22 · see citing works
- Authors
- Williamson, S., Block, L. G., & Keller, P. A.
- Venue
- Journal of the Association for Consumer Research
- Publisher
- University of Chicago Press
- Published
- 2016-01
- Volume
- 1
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 147-160
- ISSN
- 2378-1815 (ISSN-L)
- 2378-1823
- OpenAlex
- W2273746068
- Cited by
- 60
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 9 · 2015: 1
- FWCI
- 7.51
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of the Association for Consumer Research (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Food Science › Food Waste Reduction and Sustainability
- Health Sciences › Nursing › Nutrition and Dietetics › Nutrition, Health and Food Behavior
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Keywords
- food waste, plate material, dietary intake, implicit associations, dietary habits, food choice
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