Sharing to prevent waste: The effectiveness of an intervention encouraging food sharing

• Food sharing can be a strategy for reducing food waste. • We implement an intervention providing a food sharing guideline and food stickers reminding individuals to do so. • This intervention increases food sharing over time and encourages more people to do this. • The intervention decreases the amount of food in storage, reducing the risk of it being forgotten and disposed. • Our findings offer a practical approach to tackling food waste through an effective food-sharing strategy. Food waste, especially in households, is a pressing issue. Sharing excess food with others can be a strategy to tackle this issue. To encourage sharing, this research introduces an intervention involving a guideline on giving food to others and stickers reminding individuals to do so. Through a field study ( N = 199), we examine the effectiveness of this intervention on food sharing and other household behaviors towards near-expired food from the giver’s perspective. The results show that the intervention consistently increased the percentage of food shared in the two weeks after the food had entered the household. In addition, it also increased the number of individuals engaged in sharing. Besides, the intervention reduces the percentage of food put in storage, which diminishes decision-making delays and the risk of the food being forgotten and wasted eventually. Our findings offer a practical intervention to facilitate food sharing.