Managing Food Waste: What Happens After Food Waste Generation In Hotels?

Abstract

Food Waste (FW) is an issue requiring urgent action throughout the world. FW is still the main concern for the hospitality industry where the exact amount of FW produced in tourism is uncertain. Managing FW includes all actions taken to reduce the amount of waste. It includes waste prevention, recycling, composting, and the purchase of products that have recycled content or produce less waste. This research aims to explore the applied FW management polices after FW generation in three, four, and fivestar hotels. A deductive approach and quantitative method research design using questionnaire survey for a sample of food and beverage department managers in three, four, and five-star hotels at Hurghada city were adopted. A total of 88 questionnaire forms were conducted among food and beverage department managers. Descriptive statistics, One-way ANOVA test, and independent sample T-test were used to analyze obtained data. The research revealed that there are many food waste management practices that are applied in many hotels, such as FW monitoring, FW reusing, and FW recycling. The research also showed some barriers faced hotels while managing FW such as the high cost of surplus food segregation, storing, transportation, and handling, concerns about the safety of animal feed, and the high cost of the recycling process. The research provided a set of recommendations to enhance the process of managing FW in hotels.