Should My Take-Away Packaging Be Reusable? An Empirical Study Of Consumer Behaviour Towards Returnable Food Packaging In Germany

Abstract

Since the new German packaging law 'VerpackG2' came into force in January 2023, German foodservice operators selling food to-go are required to provide reusable packaging alternatives to their single-use plastic food packaging. This change in legislation has led to the emergence of various reusable consumer packaging systems in the German market. Reusable packaging systems have the potential to significantly reduce the negative environmental impact of single-use plastic packaging. However, for these systems to be successful and achieve their desired positive environmental impact, also a comprehensive understanding of consumer behaviour towards these systems is needed. This study extends the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) framework to identify the factors influencing consumers' intentions to use a reusable packaging system for takeaway food in the German foodservice industry. An online survey was developed and 153 valid responses were collected from consumers in Germany. Structural equation modelling revealed that consumers' personal moral norms, attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control directly influence consumers' intentions to use the reusable packaging system in this study. The results also show that context, motivation and personal moral norms are positively related to consumers' attitudes and that context has a significant positive effect on consumers' perceived behavioural control. Furthermore, the results of the study indicate that despite the high frequency of takeaway food orders in Germany, consumers' use of reusable packaging systems for takeaway food still needs to be improved.