Ugly produce and food waste management: An analysis based on a social cognitive perspective

Despite a proliferation of literature exploring and testing marketing measures to overcome consumer barriers towards ugly produce, acceptance of it and the adoption of sustainable behaviours remain far from unanimous. The current research explores the role of an #imperfect-produce Instagram community in fostering shared knowledge and beliefs that establish positive social norms towards ugly produce. We employed a non-random sampling methodology to analyse the #imperfect-produce community on Instagram, chosen for its active and abundant nature in documenting visually imperfect produce. Following a comprehensive inclusion/exclusion criterion, we collected a sample of posts spanning May 2021 to May 2023 and conducted a thematic approach to analyse the data through manual sifting and coding. Four themes of shared content emerged within the hashtag thread, highlighting distinct unidirectional causal relationships among the three factors (Behavioural, Personal and Environmental) of social cognitive theory (SCT). The findings indicate that online communities formed by like-minded individuals create supportive communities that normalise sustainable behaviours and encourage social modelling. This research offers managers and marketers valuable insights into leveraging online communities and provides a foundation for future research. It also addresses a critical gap in SCT literature, which has previously neglected the impact of contextual factors.