Food Waste in Healthcare, Business and Hospitality Catering: Composition, Environmental Impacts and Reduction Potential on Company and National Levels

• Main Authors: Toni Meier, Torsten von Borstel, Birgit Welte, Brennan Hogan, Steven M. Finn, Mike Bonaventura, Silke Friedrich, Kerstin Weber, Tanja Dräger de Teran
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-03-01
• Series: Sustainability
• Subjects: food losses; wastage; life-cycle assessment; LCA; carbon footprint; water footprint
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/6/3288

Background: As the reduction of food wastage remains one of our most critical challenges, we quantified the environmental impacts of food losses in the food-service sector in Germany, with a particular focus on the subsectors of business, healthcare and hospitality. Methods: Using the food-waste data of 7 catering companies, 1545 measurement days and 489,185 served meals during two 4–6 week monitoring periods, a life-cycle assessment (LCA) according to ISO standard 14040/44 was conducted. Within the LCA, the carbon, water (blue) and land footprints, and the ecological scarcity in terms of eco-points, were calculated. Results: We show that the waste generated in the food-service sector in Germany is responsible for greenhouse gas emissions of 4.9 million tons CO2-equivalents (CO2e), a water use of 103,057 m³ and a land demand of 322,838 ha, equating to a total of 278 billion eco-points per year. Subsector-specifically, in hospitality catering: 1 kg of food waste accounts for 3.4 kg CO2e, 61.1 L water and 2.6 m² land (208 eco-points); in healthcare: 2.9 kg CO2e, 48.4 L and 1.9 m² land (150 eco-points); and in business: 2.3 kg CO2e, 72 L water and 1.0–1.4 m² land (109–141 eco-points). Meal-specifically, the environmental footprints vary between 1.5 and 8.0 kg CO2e, 23.2–226.1 L water and 0.3–7.1 m² per kg food waste. Conclusions: If robust food waste management schemes are implemented in the near future and take the waste-reduction potential in the food-service sector into account, Target 12.3 of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals—which calls for halving food waste by 2030—is within reach.