New ReFED Report Shows Opportunity to Engage Consumers on Food Waste with Affordability Message

Today, ReFED is releasing American Households in 2026: Grocery Spending, Behavior Change, and Food Waste Reduction, a new report in partnership with YouGov featuring recent data that shows connections between high food prices and consumer behaviors that reduce food waste. The report features never-before-seen data on consumer behavior and presents recommendations for food waste practitioners, policymakers, and food businesses on how to engage with consumers about food waste reduction.

“Over the last two years, more and more consumers, and the media they read, have started to connect that reducing food waste in the home is one way to cope with high food prices and extend your food dollars,” says Marigold Walkins, director of research at ReFED. “Now we have recent data that backs up that connection, and more importantly, helps us understand how to magnify those behaviors and increase food waste reduction.”

Some highlights from the report include:

• ReFED’s new research indicates that there is a real opportunity for food waste practitioners, policymakers, and food businesses to engage consumers around food waste reduction by focusing on an affordability/value message.

• The research shows that consumers are responding to high food prices by making multiple small changes in their food shopping, preparation, and management behaviors that are designed to get more value out of the food they purchase—similar to the “waste not, want not” habits of older generations.

• Making multiple small changes (including cutting back on non-essentials, checking what they already have at home before shopping, cooking and eating at home more often, and using leftovers more) rather than any single change on its own increased the probability of reporting less waste (8–11 percentage points, depending on whether spending had risen or fallen).

• High food prices are affecting consumers in different ways—some are spending more, while some can’t afford the higher prices and are cutting back on what they buy. Households spending more on groceries were 29% more likely to report reduced waste than households with no change in grocery spending, and households spending less were 40% more likely. Among households that changed their grocery spending, those who attributed the change to food prices were 17% more likely to reduce food waste than those citing other reasons.

• The increase in grocery spending affected lower-income households more than others. While households under greater financial pressure reported fewer behavioral changes overall, each change corresponded to a greater probability of reporting less waste, suggesting that helping this group adopt even one or two additional behaviors could have an outsized impact.