Managing the Risk of Food Waste in Foodservice Establishments

Abstract

Although it is difficult to clearly identify the extent to which the foodservice industry contributes to food waste, its share is undoubtedly significant. As the hospitality and foodservice industry develops, more and more food waste is produced. The reduction of food waste is a key challenge for the sustainable development of the foodservice industry as it has negative economic and environmental impacts and is ethically reprehensible. The objectives of the study were to develop a risk management model of food waste based on the ISO 31000 standard for foodservice establishments, to learn the causes of food waste, and, on this basis, to estimate the risk of food waste in foodservice establishments. The survey was conducted in 130 foodservice establishments located in Poland using a specially designed questionnaire. The risk of food waste was identified in the studied foodservice establishments, manifested by throwing away of semi-finished products, hot and cold served dishes, bread, vegetables and fruit, expired products, products with signs of spoilage, and products with no visible signs of spoilage. Two risk levels were identified: medium risk for fruits and vegetables, and bread, and high (not acceptable) for the other six foodstuffs. Two risk treatment options were identified: prevention and tolerance.

Organic Food in the Diet of Residents of the Visegrad Group (V4) Countries—Reasons for and Barriers to Its Purchasing

“…However, it must be stated that the fact that this reason was included in the created model proves its importance. The low position in the model may be influenced by the fact that environmental aspects are not always considered in the surveyed countries, both by consumers and food-producing plants [4,62].…”

“…The food market is changing dynamically. New food production technologies are emerging, especially those with high and enriched nutritional value and functional food [4][5][6]. To a large extent, the changes concern the organic food sector, which contributes to maintaining good health due to maintaining metabolic processes in the body, which is an essential element of health prevention [7,8].…”

Covid-19 Pandemic and Food Waste: An Empirical Analysis

“…Human capital drivers capture managerial decisions and technical skills that result in food waste along agrifood supply chains. This category includes several factors such as the effects of mismanagement, wrong production decisions (e.g., [10,28,30]) including overproduction [10,29,30], over-preparation [31,32], and premature harvest [28]. Lack of managerial and agronomic skills [10], labor availability/or cost [33], and worker skills [34] contribute to food waste as well since they can result in the use of poor techniques in harvesting, product preparation or handling [28,36].…”

“…This group includes the effects of imperfection on capital markets, since the lack of capital and credit constraints may lead to food waste [41]. Excessive ordering contributes to the amount of food waste at the food service stage in agrifood supply chains [32].…”

A recipe for sustainable development: assessing transition of commercial foodservices towards the goal of the triple bottom line sustainability

“…Thus, food waste management is critical to environmental sustainability (Conrad et al, 2018). Studies (Bilska et al, 2020;Eriksson et al, 2019;Lang et al, 2020; Recipe for sustainable development Papargyropoulou et al, 2019) highlight the challenge of food waste as one of the pressing environmental issues in commercial foodservices, regardless of their geographic location. Food is wasted at various stages of foodservice provision by both diners and operators (Camilleri-Fenech et al, 2020;Principato et al, 2018).…”