When sharing is scaring: hesitance to share suboptimal food due to fear of negative responses from recipients

• People hesitate to share food with suboptimal attributes that do not harm quality. • This hesitance applies to both direct and indirect sharing (e.g., via food banks) • Givers’ anticipation of how recipients will respond explains the above effects. • This hesitance diminishes when food suboptimality is not visible to recipients. • Recipients respond to suboptimal food more positively than givers anticipate. Sharing food directly or through food banks has emerged as a viable strategy to combat food waste. However, scant work has investigated what and why consumers choose to share in this context. Through five online experiments and one lab experiment, we demonstrate that consumers are less likely to share food with suboptimal attributes that do not influence intrinsic quality than optimal food. This is because consumers anticipate that recipients will respond less positively to suboptimal than optimal food. Notably, this negative effect diminishes when food banks transform food into meals (making the suboptimality invisible to recipients) or display campaign signage highlighting recipient appreciation for every donation. Additionally, we identify a discrepancy between givers’ anticipation and recipients’ actual responses, revealing that the negative effect of suboptimality on recipient responses is smaller than givers anticipate. Our findings offer insights into consumers’ hesitance to share suboptimal food and how to address it.