Growing your own food: the missing ingredient in food waste prevention?

Purpose It is argued that growing our own food can help decrease household food waste because it raises consumers' appreciation of food. However, this lacks focused research and practical insights. Therefore, we explore how growing our own food could be an instrumental practice to reduce food waste. Design/methodology/approach We explored this question using qualitative surveys with a privileged sample of food gardeners, which were analysed thematically. Findings We found that the relationship between food gardening and food waste is more complex than proposed: for privileged food gardeners, growing their own food can also lead to a decreased appreciation of food and the creation of food waste due to the challenges they face when growing, processing and storing food. However, food gardening could become an instrumental practice to prevent food waste by making food gardening easy and convenient, providing opportunities for gardeners to work together, creating more opportunities to share surplus food and improving cooking skills. Originality/value These insights contribute to the existing literature by explicitly connecting household food waste and food gardening through focused study. In particular, we critique the idea that growing our own food always leads to an appreciation of food and a reduction of food waste, as barriers to growing, processing and cooking food must be addressed first.