Food waste and its determinants during the COVID-19 pandemic in Thailand and Indonesia: a case study of undergraduate students’ households

The objective of the research is to estimate the amount of household food waste (FW) and its determinants. The sample of this study is 394 Srinakharinwirot University (SWU) and 396 Gadjah Mada University (UGM) undergraduate students’ households. As shown by the results, economic losses of FW in the total number of households of SWU and UGM undergraduate students should be asserted because in 2023, they will reach about 370,799.35 USD and 527,315.95 USD, respectively. In addition, both cases reveal that the main FW items are those which originate from meat, eggs, vegetables and fruit, as well as rice and noodles, while leftovers are the main contributor to most household FW generation. The estimated Tobit model in both cases concludes that the independent variables, which are age of the household head, food expenditure, family size, area, and moral attitude, have impacts on the amount of FW.