Circular Economy in the Spanish Agri-food Distribution Sector: Factors that Drive or Stop Consumers from Engaging in Sustainable Behaviors

The Spanish Agri-Food Distribution Sector (SADS) has taken important steps to transform itself and abide by the principles of the Circular Economy (CE). The consumer plays a fundamental role in this transformation process, since it is up to the consumer to classify and recycle the products they buy and consume (household recycling). Considering their central role, the present article focuses on the Spanish supermarket shopper. The goal of the article was twofold: (1) Examining the drivers and barriers behind the household recycling habits of Spanish supermarket shoppers and, (2) Understanding how those shoppers perceive the CE actions taken by brick-and-mortar supermarkets. To that end, a survey was administered to 700 Spanish supermarket shoppers. By using a variety of inferential statistics tools, the present article found that: (1) Shoppers generally believed that supermarkets help consumers recycle. Shoppers with a stronger sustainability attitude had a stronger belief. (2) Age had a positive impact on recycling frequency. Gender had no effect. (3) Shoppers’ sustainability attitude positively affected shopper awareness of a supermarket's CE actions, as well as the perceived success of some of those actions. (4) Shoppers perceived supermarkets to be similar in terms of how effectively they communicate their CE actions to consumers. These results aligned with most of the article's hypotheses. The opportunities that such results present for supermarkets, as well as some avenues for future research were discussed.