1177 e-ISSN: 2980-4108 p-ISSN: 2980-4272 IJEBSS
IJEBSS Vol. 2 No. 04, Merch-April 2024, pages: 1176-1185
the Sustainable Development Goals and the 2030 Agenda (Hambrey, 2017). Mark Smulders, FAO Representative to
Indonesia and Timor Leste, stated that, after Saudi Arabia, Indonesia is the second largest producer of scattered
waste in the world, with a total of food waste of around 300 kilograms per person per year (Ministry of Agriculture,
2019). According to the Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy Sandiaga (Filimonau, Nghiem, & Wang, 2021), the
tourism sector, such as hotels and restaurants, is the most significant contributor to this problem.
The hospitality industry is one of the largest sources of food waste, accounting for 17% of total food waste
and more than two-thirds of avoidable food waste (Jia, Zhang, & Qiao, 2022). Due to the increasing trend of eating
out of the home driven by increased incomes and tourism, food waste in hospitality food services is affecting the
entire world and impacting both developed and developing countries. This is a significant challenge for the hospitality
industry (Ang, Narayanan, & Hong, 2021). Consumers contribute to food waste because they have different
behavioural patterns that can affect the amount of food waste produced (Aktas et al., 2018). According to (Hanafiah
& Hamdan, 2021), buffet service design causes more food waste than other restaurants because many leftovers are
left on plates and serving tables. After all, customers pay a fixed price and are encouraged to take what they want.
Studies on food waste have been conducted before. Daniele Eckert Matzembacher, Pedro Brancoli, Lais
Moltene Maia, and Mattias Eriksson (2020) say that different incentives and levels of interaction in consumer choices
of food types influence the leftovers on the plate. When incentives and interactions are low, food waste is more
significant. The food that dominates food waste is rice, beans, and other carbohydrates. In addition, research by (La
Barbera and Ajzen, 2020) said that young consumers who do not have farming experience and women tend to be
more wasteful in ordering online food. By ordering more food online, more food waste is generated. These studies
emphasise consumer behaviour factors that influence food-wasting behaviour (Hair, Risher, Sarstedt, & Ringle, 2019).
The study of consumer behaviour is research often done to understand consumer motivation in taking action;
one of the theories often used is the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), introduced by (Ajzen, 2020). Theory Of
Planned Behavior: There are three factors, namely attitude towards behaviour (Attitude Towards Behavior),
subjective norms (Subjective Norm), and behavioural control (Perceived Behavioral Control). In addition, there is also
the Moral Norm (MN) factor, which is often debated as one of the essential constructs for predicting behaviour with
moral considerations (La Barbera, Amato, & Sannino, 2016). Research by Girish Nair (2021) found that attitude and
perceived behaviour control (PBC) are significant predictors of the intention to avoid food waste and food waste
behaviour. In addition, it was also revealed that Perceived Behavioural Control (PBC) is a direct predictor of Food
Waste behaviour.
With the high rate of food waste in Indonesia, with hotels as one of the largest sources of food waste
producers, researchers felt it was essential to conduct this study. Previous research has discussed chiefly food waste
in households, while food waste in hotels is rarely discussed. This research is expected to educate the public and
hotel management on reducing food waste in Indonesia. This study is intended to analyse consumer food waste
behaviour factors at hotel buffets using the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB).
Food waste and food loss in the hotel industry are divided into many areas because of its unique industry
structure and the many services offered to its guests. Several recent studies provide information regarding food
waste in this industrial service, based on research by (Wang LinJuan et al., 2017), which found that 69.59 and 84.77
g of waste came from per consumer. Therefore, food waste in the hotel industry can be interpreted as food waste
generated from purchasing overall services from hotel rooms. Waste, or waste from the use of goods, production
processes, and service activities, is the most recognisable thing synonymous with the hotel industry (Cahyani,
Wulandari, & Putri, 2022). This, combined with the production of large amounts of food in the hospitality industry
globally (e.g., one-third of food in Denmark is in the hospitality industry, resulting in a large percentage of food waste
in the total percentage of waste generated in the hospitality industry, it is estimated that more than 50% of waste
from the hospitality industry is food waste (Fatimah & Baliwati, 2022).