22 November 2023

Action against food waste. Food saving app 'Too Good To Go' released the results of a survey about Christmas cooking, leftovers and overbuying in Austria

The provider of the food saving app 'Too Good To Go' (founded 2015 in Denmark) commissioned a representative survey to find out more about the reasons for Christmas food waste. The survey was conducted in November 2023 by the market research institute Appinio GmbH among 500 participants in Austria. It reveals that over 80% of Austrians cook their Christmas dinner, with 72.5% ending up throwing away leftovers. More than two-thirds use leftovers creatively. But even among them, food is thrown away. 72.5% of respondents said that they discarded food. The tradition of hosting large gatherings during the holiday season leads to increased shopping, resulting in significant leftovers. Despite concerns about food waste, especially during the holiday season, the survey shows that younger respondents are more likely to overbuy.
Too Good To Go explains how this happens: The average household in Austria consists of 2.2 people (Statistics Austria), so all recipes have to be significantly adapted for Christmas because nobody wants to have hungry guests. So it's no surprise that 38 percent of respondents say they buy more for the holidays to make sure they have enough to eat. What is striking is that younger respondents are more likely to overbuy; the older they get, the more accurate they are in estimating their quantities.

The survey also highlights that sweets, especially Christmas cookies, are the most commonly wasted items. Sweets top the list of leftover food (32.7%), followed by side dishes, meat, bread, etc. Georg Strasser-Müller, Country Director of Too Good To Go Austria and Switzerland, recommends reusing leftovers whenever possible, such as bread, which is ideal for breadcrumbs. Another tip provided with the survey results is to ask guests to bring storage boxes to pack leftovers.

Images, from above: Fashion.at used AI to create an image for the visualization of Christmas food waste, referring to the results of the survey on food left over after Christmas in Austria. Photo: The picture above was generated by Fashion.at with AI on Microsoft Bing, Image Creator from Designer, powered by DALL-E 3, on November 22, 2023, at 4:02 PM.
Below: Graphic of food leftovers after Christmas in Austria. The representative survey commissioned by Too Good To Go was conducted in November 2023 by the market research institute Appinio GmbH among 500 participants in Austria. Photo (Graphic): © Too Good To Go.