The next step in sustainable dining: the restaurant food waste map for the management of food waste

Abstract

In recent years, out-of-home food waste is growing exponentially and therefore represents an important focus of attention, albeit little research has been done on this instance. A few researchers have developed frameworks to better explain wasteful behaviors away from home, however a comprehensive interpretation of the phenomenon giving indications for maps/guidelines for the foodservice managers has not been carried out. In this paper, as a result of a thematic literature review, the Restaurant Food Waste Map (RFWM) was designed to describe the phases in which the food waste phenomenon occurs, and to identify mitigation activities of food waste generation processes. The proposed map is aimed to describe three phases in which the food waste phenomenon occurs: (1) kitchen food preparation, (2) food service, and (3) clients' consumption. Moreover, the present map highlights the approaches that restaurants could take into consideration to better manage the food waste: (1) prevention, (2) reduction, and (3) reuse/redistribution of food waste. These approaches set out guidance on the preferred methods of dealing with food waste so as to minimize its impact on the environment and society. The present study provides literature knowledge about food waste management at the restaurant level, and highlights some practical implications. Further studies could explore and analyze out-of-home waste from both the client and business perspective according to the proposed RFWM, to target specific attitudes and behavioral changes, and to quantify the impacts of the suggested changes. Reducing food waste is a key sustainability challenge for the food service industry. Despite the significance of this issue, a comprehensive interpretation of the phenomenon giving indications for maps/ guidelines for the foodservice managers has received limited attention in the literature. As a result of a thematic literature review, the RFWM was designed to describe the phases in which the food waste phenomenon occurs, and to identify mitigation activities of food waste generation processes with practice-driven initiatives an organized map has been developed. The proposed map is aimed to describe three phases in which the food waste phenomenon occurs: (1) kitchen food preparation, (2) food service, and (3) clients' consumption. Moreover, the present map highlights the approaches that restaurants could take into consideration to reduce food waste:(1) prevention, (2) reduction, and (3) reuse/redistribution of food waste. The present study provides literature knowledge about food waste management at the restaurant Italian Journal of Marketing 1 3 level, and highlights some practical implications. Further studies could explore and analyze out-of-home waste from both the client and business perspective according to the proposed RFWM, to target specific attitudes and behavioral changes, and to quantify the impacts of the suggested changes. The concepts discussed here could help practitioners to become more aware of the factors that drive the adoption of f...

Introducing digital tools for sustainable food supply management: Tackling food loss and waste in industrial canteens

“…As previously mentioned, in recent years the number of meals served for out-of-home consumption has increased (FIPE, 2019;Pires et al, 2022) due to recreational reasons and the large number of people who eat in the workplace or student canteens. Contemporaneously, the amount of FW generated in this setting is growing exponentially, highlighting how this issue represents an important focus of research agenda (Principato et al, 2021b).…”

“…Bearing the above issues in mind, out-of-home FW plays an important role considering that there is a clear trend toward out-of-home consumption, probably due to urbanization, rising incomes, conviviality, lack of time to prepare meals, and work commitments (d'Angelo et al, 2020;Eurostat, 2018;Lorenz et al, 2017;Pires et al, 2022;Principato et al, 2021b). It is important to understand the factors that lead to FW and carefully monitor the quantity of FW generated out-of-home.…”

Assessing the Impact of COVID-19 on Sustainable Food Supply Chains

“…Traceability [9,14,15] Food safety and security [14,16] Know-how transfer [5,14,[17][18][19][20] Information sharing [19,20] Logistics Networking [13,[21][22][23][24] Risk mitigation [24,25] Responsiveness [25][26][27][28] Employee Commitment [29,30] Innovation [31][32][33] Managerial Approaches [34,35] After the production stage of food supply chains, the processing stage is another critical stage for sustainable food supply chains [18]. The majority of losses in food supply chains come from the processing stage [14].…”

“…In addition, although it is crucial to every stage of sustainable food supply, employee commitment in the retail stage contributed to being more sustainable and resilient against sudden disruptions [29]. The commitment of the employees in the process ensures that the sustainability of the food supply chain is increased in the retail stage, which is the previous stage from the consumer, and the wastes and problems that will arise in the retail stage are prevented [30].…”

Restaurant customers’ food leftover reduction intention derived from nature connection and biospheric values: A comparison between men and women

“… Bux and Amicarelli (2022) applied the MFCA tool to determine the material, energy, environmental, and economic costs of food waste. Principato et al (2021) designed Restaurant Food Waste Map (RFWM) to explain outdoor food waste. This series of studies show that reducing food waste is one of the biggest challenges for the food service industry’s sustainable growth.…”