Abstract:The aim of the study was to reduce food waste in a hospital, a hospital cafeteria, and a residential home by applying a participatory approach in which the employees were integrated into the process of developing and implementing measures. Initially, a process analysis was undertaken to identify the processes and structures existing in each institution. This included a 2-week measurement of the quantities of food produced and wasted. After implementing the measures, a second measurement was conducted and the results of the two measurements were compared. The average waste rate in the residential home was significantly reduced from 21.4% to 13.4% and from 19.8% to 12.8% in the cafeteria. In the hospital, the average waste rate remained constant (25.6% and 26.3% during the reference and control measurements). However, quantities of average daily food provided and wasted per person in the hospital declined. Minimizing overproduction, i.e., aligning the quantity of meals produced to that required, is essential to reducing serving losses. Compliance of meal quality and quantity with customer expectations, needs, and preferences, i.e., the individualization of food supply, reduces plate waste. Moreover, establishing an efficient communication structure involving all actors along the food supply chain contributes to decreasing food waste.

Abstract:Based on their experiences gained in 15 companies in the catering sector and the bakery industry, the authors present a participatory concept to reduce food waste in the food industry. This five-phase concept, adapted to the PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) cycle applied in the Total Quality Management, involves a participatory approach where employees are integrated into the process of developing and implementing measures to counteract food waste. The authors describe how the participatory approach can be used to raise awareness of the topic of food waste to improve employee commitment and responsibility. As a result, the authors further offer a Manual for Managers wishing to reduce food waste in their respective organizations. This manual includes information on the methodologies applied in each step of the improvement cycle. It also describes why the steps are necessary, and how results can be documented. The participatory concept and the Manual for Managers contribute to reducing food waste and to enhancing resource efficiency in the food industry.

There is an urgent need for primary data collection on food waste to obtain solid quantification data that can be used as an indicator in the goal of halving food waste by 2030. This study examined how quality baselines for food waste can be achieved within the different segments of the hospitality sector, encompassing establishments such as canteens, elderly care units, hospitals, hotels, preschools, primary schools, restaurants, and upper secondary schools. The empirical material comprised food-waste quantification data measured in 1189 kitchens in Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Germany for 58,812 quantification days and 23 million portions. All the data were converted to a common format for analysis. According to the findings, around 20% of food served became waste. Waste per portion varied widely between establishments, ranging from 50.1 ± 9.4 g/portion for canteens to 192 ± 30 g/portion for restaurants. To identify the measurement precision needed for tracking changes over time, we suggest statistical measures that could be used in future studies or in different food-waste tracking initiatives.

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This article presents a marketing campaign guide to support nonprofit and governmental organizations, such as academic research institutes or governmental agencies, that wish to develop support tools for the food industry. It offers a systematic and target audience-centered approach which guides nonprofits through the various steps of a marketing campaign, from defining the required values of a new product or service to ultimately launching it. The text also explains how a target audience-centered marketing approach was applied in a case study of developing and transferring the LAV platform (LAV-Avoiding Food Waste, from the German "Lebensmittel Abfall Vermeiden"), a website that has been specifically set up and targeted to small-and medium-sized companies (SMEs) in the German food sector that wish to reduce food waste in their operations. Currently, there are more than 500 tools available in the English or German language which attempt to support companies in the food sector in their food waste reduction efforts. However, so far there has been no platform that could gather all these tools to facilitate SMEs' access to them. The LAV platform compiles various relevant tools from academia as well as from industry and makes the most suitable tools available in a toolbox published on the Internet platform. Here, the tools are structured by topic and market segment; its user-friendliness was tested applying participatory methods which involved SMEs and industry organizations. The LAV platform, as well as target audience-centered marketing approaches more generally, could act as role models for other international projects that also have the goal of setting up and promoting tool-gathering systems.