Food waste is a major global issue. Annually, more than 40% of all food produced for human consumption is sent to landfill, resulting in significant environmental, financial, and social consequences. Importantly, most of this waste happens at the household level. Hence, effective ways to influence intentions and behaviors to reduce household food waste must be identified. This paper investigates the impact of hope elicited by message framing on intentions and behavior relating to food waste reduction, and conditions under which such emotion is more effective. Results show hope elicited by gain (vs. loss) messages mediates the relationship between messages and behavior and intentions, and participants feeling hope show greater intention not to waste food when reading how (vs. why) messages. This research builds on current theory involving hope theory and message framing, presents avenues for future research and discusses managerial implications of message framing relating to behavior change campaigns.