Testing interventions to reduce food waste in school catering
TLDR
In this paper, the authors tested four interventions (tasting spoons, awareness campaign, a plate waste tracker and a guest forecasting tool) designed to reduce food waste in school canteens.Abstract:
Food waste is a problem that needs to be addressed to achieve sustainable development. There is a need for interventions that can reduce food waste, including in organisations already aware of the food waste problem. Swedish school canteens have experience of food waste reduction, but need tools to achieve further reductions. This study tested four interventions (tasting spoons, awareness campaign, a plate waste tracker and a guest forecasting tool) designed to reduce food waste in school canteens. Each intervention was introduced in two school canteens, while seven school canteens acted as a reference group. The interventions were compared with baseline food waste before the intervention and with the reference group. All interventions reduced total food waste (by 6 to 44 g/guest) compared with the baseline, but the reference group also reduced its food waste. The awareness campaign reduced plate waste most, by 13 g per portion, which was 6 g/portion more than the plate waste reduction in the reference group. The forecasting and plate waste tracker interventions reduced serving waste most, by 34 and 38 g/portion, compared with 11 g/portion in the reference group. Some interventions also had an effect on waste fractions they were not designed to target, affecting the total waste by shifting the waste. Interventions should always be seen in a context and be implemented in combinations that increase overall sustainability. Thus forecasting is an effective way to reduce serving waste, plate waste tracker and awareness campaign are effective tools to reduce plate waste in school canteens.read more
Citations
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From Old Habits to New Routines—A Case Study of Food Waste Generation and Reduction in Four Swedish Schools
Christine Persson Osowski,Dariusz Osowski,Kristina Johansson,Niina Sundin,Christopher Malefors,Mattias Eriksson +5 more
TL;DR: In this article , food waste quantification in school canteens in two Swedish municipalities and nine qualitative interviews with key actors were conducted to gain insight into reasons for food waste and possible solutions for lowering food waste in schools in Sweden.
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Food waste changes in the Swedish public catering sector in relation to global reduction targets
TL;DR: In this paper , eight years of food waste quantification data from Swedish public catering were used to monitor changes and evaluate progress towards global reduction targets, and a 15-30% reduction was observed.
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Investigating the Impacts of Behavioural-Change Interventions and COVID-19 on the Food-Waste-Generation Behaviours of Catered Students in the UK and India
TL;DR: In this paper , a food-waste initiative was conducted at two university canteens in the UK and India to examine foodwaste attitudes and opportunities for food waste reduction.
Journal ArticleDOI
Plate Waste in School Catering in Rezekne, Latvia
Jeļena Lonska,Anda Zvaigzne,Inta Kotane,Inese Silicka,Lienite Litavniece,Sergejs Kodors,Juta Deksne,Aija Vonoga +7 more
TL;DR: In this article , a study was conducted within the framework of a research project aimed at detecting patterns of plate waste and developing recommendations for improving catering in seven schools in Rezekne city (Latvia) by a combination of observation, physical weighing, semi-structured interview approaches and statistical analysis of variance (ANOVA).
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Making food waste illegal in Sweden – Potential gains from enforcing best practice in the public catering sector
TL;DR: In this paper , the authors explored the potential gains of applying the Environmental Code, potential benchmarking thresholds for illegal levels of food waste and best voluntary practices that can achieve low levels of waste.
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