Pré-publication, Document de travail: Food waste constitutes a significant economic inefficiency and should therefore be a central policy issue. While in low-income countries food waste is often associated with poor harvesting, storage and transportation conditions, in middle-and high-income countries consumers' behavior is considered to be the main driver of this problem. The general aim of our paper is to contribute to the understanding of food waste. We focus on household food waste and the economic mechanisms behind it. We propose a stylized model in which food waste appears as an economic decision of households. Our framework of "rational food waste" relies primarily on consumer behavioural biases, which could be further encouraged by aggressive pricing strategies such as quantity discounts.