Community canteen’s view on food surplus
Community canteens are key intervention points in optimizing planning for less food surplus through monitoring, information linking, and employee training. According to the EU's food waste hierarchy, redistribution for human consumption (reuse) is the second-best solution for Food Loss and Waste prevention after avoiding surplus generation and, thus, avoiding food waste in the first place. Here planning their procurement, optimizing their processes can help. Also, technical tools, can link consumers (from households or social organizations) with retailers, producers, and food services with a surplus. However, canteens should be included in co-creating such technical solutions since the social and practical context influences their perception and acceptability. One main challenge for canteens is their limited opening time. To avoid additional energy use to heat the food and extra hours for personnel, consumers or social organizations must pick up the surplus in canteens before their closing time. This timely limitation should be explained within evaluation systems so that consumers share their experiences on relevant criteria for reducing surplus.
Community canteens are, additionally, highly dependent on flexibility of payment services (e.g., cash vs. card payment). Payment barriers and changes in eating routines may increase surpluses before quantity adaptations can be achieved. A better integration in their neighbourhood, co-designed technical tools for payments and communication with consumers, and more public awareness of their contribution to climate-conscious and affordable healthy food are important.
TOWARDS A NEW ZERO FOOD WASTE MINDSET BASED ON HOLISTIC ASSESSMENT
Ongoing | 2022-2027
- Main funding source
- Horizon Europe (EU Research and Innovation Programme)
- Geographical location
- Spain, Austria, Netherlands, Sweden, Greece