Patterns and causes of food waste in the hospitality and food service sector: food waste prevention insights from Malaysia

Papargyropoulou, E, Steinberger, JK, Wright, N ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1289-2830, Lozano, R, Padfield, R and Ujang, Z, 2019. Patterns and causes of food waste in the hospitality and food service sector: food waste prevention insights from Malaysia. Sustainability, 11 (21), p. 6016. ISSN 2071-1050

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Abstract

Food waste has formidable detrimental impacts on food security, the environment, and the economy, which makes it a global challenge that requires urgent attention. This study investigates the patterns and causes of food waste generation in the hospitality and food service sector, with the aim of identifying the most promising food waste prevention measures. It presents a comparative analysis of five case studies from the hospitality and food service (HaFS) sector in Malaysia and uses a mixed-methods approach. This paper provides new empirical evidence to highlight the significant opportunity and scope for food waste reduction in the HaFS sector. The findings suggest that the scale of the problem is even bigger than previously thought. Nearly a third of all food was wasted in the case studies presented, and almost half of it was avoidable. Preparation waste was the largest fraction, followed by buffet leftover and then customer plate waste. Food waste represented an economic loss equal to 23% of the value of the food purchased. Causes of food waste generation included the restaurants' operating procedures and policies, and the social practices related to food consumption. Therefore, food waste prevention strategies should be twofold, tackling both the way the hospitality and food service sector outlets operate and organise themselves, and the customers’ social practices related to food consumption.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Sustainability
Creators:	Papargyropoulou, E., Steinberger, J.K., Wright, N., Lozano, R., Padfield, R. and Ujang, Z.
Publisher:	MDPI AG
Date:	2019
Volume:	11
Number:	21
ISSN:	2071-1050
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.3390/su11216016 DOI 1334779 Other
Rights:	© 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Divisions:	Professional Services > The Directorate
Record created by:	Linda Sullivan
Date Added:	23 Jun 2020 09:23
Last Modified:	23 Jun 2020 09:23
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/40079

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