Understanding the perception about food waste generation is crucial to significantly reduce the amount generated by 2020 as proposed in the conference Rio+20. To date consumer´s feeding habits and waste management practices are not in depth consid-ered in the literature. The aim of the present work is to analyse citizen’s perception towards food waste and understand how citizens form their food waste behaviour de-cisions. A theoretical model has been elaborated based on literature. A questionnaire on food waste was analysed by means of structural equation models. Results show that food waste is directly influenced by purchasing habits as diet selection and pur-chasing behaviour, as well as waste prevention behaviour and indirectly influenced by materialism and environmentalism values.