A food waste information-framing can help promote purchase of suboptimal potatoes

• Participants’ willingness to choose suboptimal potatoes increased with food waste messages. • The effect was found despite both potatoes being equally expensive. • Reasons for choosing the suboptimal potato included the reduction of food waste. • Reasons for choosing the optimal potato included product price and aesthetics. Following specifications focusing on aesthetics, huge quantities of produce are discarded along the food value chain even before reaching the supermarket. One example is fresh potatoes, where only around 50% of the potatoes produced reach the consumer. In this study, we used an online study (N = 481, 51% women) to investigate whether food waste information-framing can make suboptimal potatoes more appealing to consumers. In the experimental part, we used a 2 × 2 design (setting × information). Participants were presented with either a supermarket or farm shop setting with or without food waste information. They chose between optimal potato A, suboptimal potato B, or neither. Both potatoes were equally expensive. We found that the participants’ willingness to choose suboptimal potatoes increased significantly with food waste messages (25% to 41% and 29% to 46%, respectively). Our results show that the provision of food waste information-framing can help promote suboptimal potatoes.