Addressing Food Waste at University College Dublin, Ireland (2023 Sep)

At a glance

  • Two students undertook this as their final year project for the BSc in Human Nutrition at UCD and two students were working as work placement interns with the clinical nutrition and dietetics team at the School of Public Health, Physiotherapy & Sports Science.

Background:

Food waste is a global issue which carries many environmental and economic implications. An estimated 25-33%, or 1.3 billion tonnes, of food is wasted globally (1). The UN SDG of halving food waste by 2030 requires large scale action. Action in Ireland is guided by European directives to monitor and reduce food waste in line with the UN SDG goals (2).

Universities are settings with large populations and diverse expertise that could address food waste in meaningful and innovate ways. The student and staff population at UCD is over 30,000 with over 4000 beds provided for student residences on-campus. There are several large restaurants, numerous cafes and delis, coffee docks, 2 grocery shops, and other small vendors across the campus. Novel food vans park up once per week and during events or festivals. There are 4 main providers of catering to events and conferences across the campus. In short, UCD is akin to a large, bustling town with a food system to match.

UCD Estate services already has several supporting policies and programmes in place for sustainability. (3) UCD seeks the attainment of a sustainable, healthy and living campus and as such endeavours to manage the campus in a way that considers energy and water usage, waste management, sustainable commuting and biodiversity in all of its activities where relevant.

For students, there are opportunities to explore different aspects of the university food environment for the purpose of learning about food systems, waste, and what it all means for sustainability. To obtain a snapshot of the university campus, students focused on:

  • Food waste practices within a large university restaurant setting
  • Food waste knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours among students in residence on campus
  • Food waste within one staff building – the waste was collected, the students explored different methods of composting, and organised a living soil and composting workshop open to staff and students in collaboration with the community garden at the School of Veterinary Medicine.

Lessons Learnt:

  • A pilot exploratory project helped to build diverse relationships across campus including with restaurant management, Green Campus, the community garden, food waste and sustainability researchers and initiate conversations about this topic.
  • Small projects can attract interested staff and students and support the sustainability of actions with willing volunteers (e.g. continuing composting).
  • Accessing students to complete a survey was challenging and on-campus residence initiatives to engage students will require additional time and creativity.
  • The most wasted food group in a large university restaurant was starches, followed by vegetables. Plate waste, rather than kitchen waste, were the focus of the study, therefore server and consumer level engagement around portions sizes and waste awareness may be the appropriate focus for intervention.
  • The team in nutrition and dietetics at UCD collaborate with Airfield Farm Estate, where they demonstrate opportunities for full composting of food waste on-site, creating valuable compost and fertiliser for their garden and food growing.
  • The study is being developed further (in 2023/2024) to engage more with students’ knowledge and attitudes and repeat the restaurant methods to obtain a full academic year snapshot.

What Else? Other Relevant Examples

Food for Thought
Educators and Students seem the ideal role models for reducing food waste.
What systems need to be in place to avoid waste?
What supports do universities need to reduce food waste?

Contact Information
Sarah Browne, sarah.browne1@ucd.ie

References:

1 – International Day of Awareness on Food Loss and Waste Reduction 29 September

2 – Irish National Food Waste Prevention Roadmap 2023-2025 From Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications Published on 30 November 2022, Last updated on 30 January 2023 )

3 – Summary of UCD Sustainability Activities via Estates

Red-Listed Seafood (2023 Aug)

At a Glance

  • Madalyn Higgins, RD, the Dietitian and Sustainability Manager at Acadia Dining Services (provided by Chartwell’s Canada) worked with the students in NUTR 4913 Sustainable Food Systems and Dietary Patterns to address this target, providing them with a meaningful experiential learning opportunity. The students were all studying to become nutrition or health professionals, at least half of them intended on a career in dietetics.
The efforts of the students focused on three areas:
  • Understanding and communicating key messages about sustainable seafood.  Students put together a comprehensive review of existing research surrounding the topic and created communications tools to be displayed in the dining hall to inform staff and students about the negative effects of Red-Listed seafood and what steps they can take to minimize these effects.
  • Identifying Red-Listed seafood on the menu. Students investigated seafood sources to determine if they are on the Red List. This meant speaking with food system actors such as distributors and fisheries and comparing information to Ocean Wise resources.
  • Exploring strategies for more sustainable menu alternatives. Students proposed potential replacements using comparable items and looked for distributors.
  • The students presented their work to the dining hall’s Chef, Dietitian and Sustainability Manager, Director of Operations and Marketing Manager.
  • These efforts aimed to promote environmentally responsible dining practices at Acadia University while raising awareness about the importance of sustainable seafood sourcing.

Background:

Buying seafood that is Red-Listed has been recognized worldwide as a significant problem, as it is linked to major concerns for our fisheries and the health of the planet such as low fish stock numbers, destabilization of the ecosystem-wide food chain, and Irresponsible fishing practices that contribute to the destruction of our oceans.

With the growing population and growing appetite for fish and seafood in developed nations, billions of people around the world rely on fish and seafood as an essential source of protein and a means of income. Researchers have gathered that this seafood should not be made commercially available and alternative options need to be considered.

Organizations such as Seafood Watch, categorize red-listed seafood through different ranking systems tailored for various types of fishing such as fisheries and aquaculture, and score them based on their sustainability criteria.

The sum of the scores allow the seafood to fall into Green (good choice), Yellow (good alternative), or Red (avoid) categories. Other organizations such as Ocean-Wise and Aquaculture Stewardship Council also assess sustainability based on Seafood Watch’s sustainability scoring system  and convert the scores from three-fold to a binary system of Green and Red. Learn more…


Lessons Learnt:

  • Through research, students gathered that the problem is that there is a lot of complexity and lack of transparency surrounding the global seafood supply chain and what seafood is sustainable to eat.
  • There is a need to improve transparency regarding sustainable seafood and ability to access this information. The group learned about the importance of understanding these tools to identify relevant information about sustainable seafood options.
  • It is everyone’s responsibility to ensure sustainable seafood consumption. Policies should be put in place to regulate how seafood is being labeled sustainable.
  • While not easy, it is possible to identify unsustainable seafood sources and replace them with more sustainable sources.
  • Sustainably sourced seafood, such as recirculating aquaculture is not perfect but can create seafood options. These options can be much more expensive, and we rely on food and nutrition professionals to get creative in the kitchen to use them more sparingly.
  • The seafood that the students helped remove included the red-listed atlantic salmon and white shrimp that was being served in the Acadia dining hall.  Students gathered sustainable options to be presented as recommendations to replace these red-listed menu items. The better choices included the Ocean Wise-approved farmed Whiteleg shrimp and the Ocean Wise-approved farmed Giant Tiger shrimp. 

What Else? Other Relevant Examples

  • Recirculating aquaculture is Ocean Wise approved by fisheries worldwide and is often used for Atlantic salmon farming. Learn more…
  • Through the Aquaculture Stewardship Council, you can search ASC-certified seafood using a simple drop-down search. Learn more…
  • Organizations such as the Marine Conservation Society create resources to help educate students about ocean sustainability. Learn more…
  • Nourish Canada has developed a Sustainable Menu Guide that can guide menus for organizations such as University campuses. The menu guide simplifies efforts o create sustainable menus that reduce environmental impact while offering healthy, affordable, acceptable, and fair food to clients.  While not specific to sustainable seafood, it is more broadly helpful with practical examples.

Food for Thought
How do we ensure that we have aquatic resources for the future, especially with the growing demand?
What kind of tools are effective or needed to empower and educate consumers to make sustainable choices?
What supports do food service providers need to serve sustainable seafood choices?

Contact Information
Madalyn Higgins, Madalyn.Higgins@compass-canada.com

Food and food-related waste management strategies in hospital food services: A systematic review (2022)

Cook N, Goodwin D, Porter J, Collins J. Food and food-related waste management strategies in hospital food services: A systematic review. Nutrition & Dietetics. 2022;1‐27. doi:10.1111/1747-0080.12768COOKET AL.27

Open access link to article: 

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1747-0080.12768

Relevant to: 

Foodservice dietitians, sustainability dietitians, foodservice manager and workers

Question: 

  • What are hospital foodservices around the world currently doing to manage their food waste more sustainably?
  • What are the financial, environmental and staffing outcomes associated with these activities?
  • And what were the barriers and enablers to implementing these strategies?

Bottom line for nutrition practice: 

  • Divert surplus edible food and inedible food waste from landfill by using the most appropriate management strategy available.

Abstract: 

  • Aim – This review explored peer-reviewed and grey literature to describe the types and characteristics of food or food-related waste management strategies used in hospital food service settings; their financial, environmental and staffing outcomes; and the barriers and enablers associated with their implementation.
  • Methods – Six electronic databases, 17 Google Advanced searches, and 19 targeted websites were searched for peer-reviewed and grey literature. Literature reporting the financial, environmental, or staffing outcomes of food or food-related waste management strategies that reused, recovered energy from, or recycled waste instead of sending it to landfill were eligible. Document screening and review were completed in duplicate, and included peer-reviewed literature were assessed for quality using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool. Data were synthesised narratively.
  • Results – Four peer-reviewed and 81 grey literature records reported 85 strategies. When grouped from most to least favourable according to the food recovery hierarchy they managed waste by: donating surplus food (n = 21); feeding animals (n = 2); industrial use (n = 11); composting (n = 34) and other (n = 17). These approaches had the capacity to reduce waste hauling fees (n = 14), reduce staff handling of waste (n = 3), and decrease the amount of waste sent to landfill (n = 85). Barriers included contamination of waste streams, while enablers included leadership and time-neutral changes.
  • Conclusion – This review summarises the waste management strategies used by hospitals worldwide that divert food and food-related waste from landfill, their outcomes, and position in the food recovery hierarchy to enable hospital food services to implement appropriate practice and policy changes to decrease their environmental footprint.

Details of results: 

  • 85 examples of hospital foodservices were found to be diverting their food waste from landfill more sustainably.
  • When grouped from most to least favourable according to the food recovery hierarchy they managed waste by: donating surplus food (n = 21); feeding animals (n = 2); industrial use (n = 11); composting (n = 34) and other (n = 17).
  • The location of these strategies diverting waste were in hospital foodservices (n = 41), cafeteria (n = 7), CPK (n = 2), catering unit (n = 1) or combination of these settings (n = 18).
  • Financial savings ranged from AUD $400-50,000 from waste disposal, equipment changes and labour use whereas costs ranged from AUD $1200-260,500 from food waste collection and installing procured equipment.
  • Landfill savings occurred in every case but notably the highest examples were annually: 18,1444 kgs being donated, 200 tons composted and 360 digested.
  • Other environmental outcomes included reduced carbon emissions, water savings, energy creation and less transport.
  • Staffing outcomes were less waste handling and less time cleaning, however also involved giving staff more responsibility to separate, transport waste and operate equipment.
  • The major reported barriers were contamination, times demands, equipment problems, stakeholder coordination and staff resistance, whereas enablers were leadership, no increase in time, easy equipment use, data and a return on investments.

Of additional interest: 

Collection of research on food waste measurement by this group on Google Scholar

Conflict of interest/ Funding:  

Prof. Judi Porter is Editor-in-Chief of Nutrition & Dietetics. She was excluded from the peer-review process and all decision making regarding this article. This manuscript has been managed throughout the review process by the Journal’s Editor. The Journal operates a blinded peer review process and the peer reviewers for this manuscript were unaware of the authors of the manuscript. This process prevents authors who also hold an editorial role to influence the editorial decisions made. All authors are in agreement with the manuscript and declare that the content has not been published elsewhere. Other authors declare no conflicts of interest. NC received a departmental scholarship for his Ph.D. from Monash University’s Department of Nutrition, Dietetics and Food, and a King and Amy O’Malley Trust Scholarship during this study.

External relevant links:  

USA EPA Food recovery hierarchy.

Corresponding author: 

Mr. Nathan Cook, Nathan.cook@monash.edu

Factors influencing implementation of food and food-related waste audits in hospital foodservices (2022)

Cook N, Collins J, Goodwin D and Porter J (2022) Factors influencing implementation of food and food-related waste audits in hospital foodservices. Front. Nutr. 9:1062619. doi: 10.3389/fnut.2022.1062619

Open access link to article: 

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnut.2022.1062619/full

Relevant to: 

  • Foodservice dietitians, sustainability dietitians, foodservice manager and workers

Bottom line for nutrition practice: 

  • What are the perspectives of individuals working close or within hospital foodservices on a previous developed food waste audit tool and what do they perceive to be the major factors supporting and or blocking the completion of a food waste audit?
  • Consider the barriers and enablers to the completion of a food waste audit in your facility before pursuing one including the design, completion and analysis of an audit.

Abstract: 

  • Background: Designing a food waste audit tool for novel hospital foodservice practice does not guarantee uptake. Intended users must be consulted to understand the tool’s feasibility and face validity. This study aimed to identify the perspectives of staff involved in the operation of hospital foodservices on (1) how an evidenced based consensus pathway food waste audit tool is perceived to translate into practice, and (2) to determine the factors that influence the completion of food and food-related waste audits within this setting.
  • Materials and methods: Purposeful sampling was used to recruit staff with knowledge on the operation/governance of foodservices within hospitals in Victoria, Australia. Semi-structured interviews (n = 20) were conducted via Zoom to explore barriers and enablers to completing food and food-related waste audits and a previously published food waste audit tool. NVivo was used for inductive thematic analysis.
  • Results: Three factors determined the completion of food and food-related waste audits in hospital foodservices, and each factor could be a barrier or an enabler; (1) capacity: the availability of time, labour and materials to complete an audit (2) change: staff resistance to audit procedures and how to gain their buy-in (3) processes, governance, and leadership: the opportunity for high level support, policy and structure to encourage waste audits if present. The consensus tool appeared to have face validity. Planning audit operations, conducting stakeholder meetings, providing education/training to foodservice team members, and facilitating communication between managers and staff were described to support consensus tool use and audit completion.
  • Conclusion: The consensus tool can be used to support hospital foodservices to complete food and food-related waste audits, although it may need to be customised to be fit for purpose. Optimising the capacity, change management and processes, governance and leadership of the foodservice department may improve the experience and success of a food and food-related waste audit.

Details of results: 

  • The two major perspectives participants shared for a food waste audit to come to fruition were appropriate preparation and implementation. Other recommendations included adequate support, having a clear goal in mind, planning, organising logistics and having clear communication between all levels of staff delivered through meetings and education sessions.
  • Most of participants believed the tool was: detailed, supportive to their practice, helpful for decision making and ready to use. However others viewed it as busy, confusing and that it requires extra knowledge to understand and use. Future iterations of the tool were suggested to be customisable to participants facilities, demonstrate solutions to reduce food waste and have separate sections compared to the one page only.
  • The three factors relating to food waste audit completion were –
    • (1) capacity: the availability of time, labour and materials to complete an audit.
    • (2) change: staff resistance to audit procedures and how to gain their buy-in.
    • (3) processes, governance, and leadership: the opportunity for high level support, policy and structure to encourage waste audits if present.
  • A key finding related to the factors which may support or hinder a food waste audits completion were that the enablers suggested would solve the barriers discussed. This demonstrates individuals who work close or within hospital foodservices already know what to do for a food waste audit if this task was asked of them to complete.

Of additional interest: 

Collection of research on food waste measurement by this group on Google Scholar.

Conflict of interest/ Funding:  

No conflict of interest. NC received a departmental scholarship for his Ph.D. from Monash University’s Department of Nutrition, Dietetics and Food, and a King and Amy O’Malley Trust Scholarship during this study

External relevant links:  

Corresponding author: 

Mr. Nathan Cook Nathan.cook@monash.edu

Marine Conservation Society & Good Fish Guide (website)

Marine Conservation Society (MSC) is fighting for a cleaner, better protected, healthier ocean: one we can all enjoy.

For a cleaner ocean, MSC campaigns to stop pollution entering our oceans, and volunteer beach cleans remove and record the litter on the UK coastline. Using science, MSC tracks the health of our waters, influences business practice, and calls for better environmental regulations.

For a better-protected ocean MSC secures space where species and habitats can recover. MSC is campaigning for a minimum of 30% of UK waters being effectively managed by 2030 to protect wildlife and ecosystems. Only seas full of life can absorb carbon and help tackle climate change.

For a healthier ocean MSC promotes sustainable fishing and seafood to minimise harm. MSC support businesses to catch, produce and source seafood sustainably and incorporate conservation into their work. The MSC Good Fish Guide highlights the most and least sustainable fish, so people can make better seafood-buying choices.

MSC makes sure ratings are as up-to-date as possible, aiming to review them all at least once every three years. Many are updated annually. Any significant changes, like new laws or new scientific evidence, may trigger an update. For transparency and credibility, MSC researches and drafts a set of ratings updates, and puts them out to consultation. Scientists, fishermen, and businesses review proposed updates and provide extra information. In between consultations and launches, MSC is working on the next set of ratings updates, so always looking out for important changes and incorporating the latest available information. MSC follows two separate processes, one for farmed seafood and one for wild-caught, allowing us to address key issues for each area.

Aquaculture Stewardship Council (Website)

The Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) is the world’s leading certification scheme for farmed seafood – known as aquaculture – and the ASC label only appears on food from farms that have been independently assessed and certified as being environmentally and socially responsible. Aquaculture produces over half of the seafood eaten around the world and will be vital in providing healthy, affordable protein to the world’s rapidly growing population in the future. But like all food production, it has impacts and must be done responsibly.

ASC develops and manages the strictest standards in the industry. These standards include hundreds of requirements covering the potential impacts of aquaculture – including water quality, responsible sourcing of feed, disease prevention, animal welfare, the fair treatment and pay of workers, and maintaining positive relationships with neighbouring communities.

The ASC Metrics Methodology project to creates transparency and consistency into the ‘metric’ standard-setting. The ‘Baseline’ Methodology published in November 2020 was issued for a 62-day public consultation period. It is applicable to all species-specific metrics and aims to provide minimum requirements for setting and/or revising metrics within any of the ASC standards.

Click here to find a farm, supplier, or product around the globe. You’ll also be able to access ASC country / regional websites from this link as well.

The Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) was launched in 2010 and we have been collecting data since the first farms achieved certification against our standards in 2012. You can visit their dashboard to see what countries are covered and how many frames and products are included. This provide an important picture of ASC’s growth, the reach of environmentally and socially responsible seafood choices, and inform market opportunities. Aggregated data are often used by stakeholders in their own research and understanding on responsible farming practices.

Click here to explore the database via the ASC dashboard.

Updated 2023 April

Nordic food systems for improved health and sustainability: Baseline assessment to inform transformation (2019)

According to the report “Nordic food systems for improved health and sustainability: Baseline assessment to inform transformation (2019)”, there are sufficient data on Nordic food systems to understand the crucial action areas and to begin taking immediate steps towards food systems transformations. A transformation implies a journey into aspects partly unknown and untested. The report highlights the complementarity of scientific assessment and normative dialogue on this journey.

Dietitians and Nutritionists (D-Ns) are key to this! From the report:

Food system actors would benefit from building a common understanding of desired pathways towards transformation, which should be informed by the best available evidence. This can be achieved through sustained, cross-sectoral (e.g. policy, business, research, civil society, producer, consumer) stakeholder dialogues. It is particularly important to include stakeholders who are often marginalized in these types of collaborative decision-making processes.

There will be challenges to initiating these changes, such as adopting a ‘whole food system’ approach; addressing trade-offs among food system goals; and confronting prevailing forces and lock-ins. Yet these challenges should not be an excuse for inaction.

Key messages

  • Food systems should be a critical lever of change in the Nordics to reach global health and environmental sustainability commitments.
  • The gap between current and desired food systems is substantial enough to require transformative change.
  • An integrated food systems approach aligning agricultural, production, trade, manufacturing, retailing and consumption priorities must be taken.
  • There is enough evidence on necessary food system changes to begin action in setting current food systems on a trajectory towards healthy and sustainable development.
  • Sustained, multi-sectoral forums are needed to steer Nordic food system transformation.

Next steps

  • Begin immediate action to transform Nordic food systems
  • Initiate a multi-stakeholder scenario development process to define a common vision for Nordic food systems
  • Develop strategies to handle the trade-offs of change
  • Evaluate Nordic food systems in the global context

Acknowledgement: This page is an extracted from the introduction to the report.

Food system impacts on biodiversity loss (2021)

This Chatham House report was supported by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and Compassion in World Farming and describes three actions needed for food system transformation in support of biodiversity, and sets out recommendations to embed food system reform in high level political events. All have a strong role for Dietitians and Nutritionists.

The problems:

  • The global food system is the primary driver of biodiversity loss and will continue to accelerate, unless we change the way we produce food. Our global food system is the primary driver of biodiversity loss, with agriculture alone being the identified threat to 24,000 of the 28,000 (86%) species at risk of extinction. The global rate of species extinction today is higher than the average rate over the past 10 million years. Further destruction of ecosystems and habitats will threaten our ability to sustain human populations.
  • In the last decades our food systems have been following the “cheaper food paradigm”, with a goal of producing more food at lower costs through increasing inputs such as fertilizers, pesticides, energy, land and water. This paradigm leads to a vicious circle: the lower cost of food production creates a bigger demand for food that must also be produced at a lower cost through more intensification and further land clearance. The impacts of producing more food at a lower cost are not limited to biodiversity loss. The global food system is a major driver of climate change, accounting for around 30% of total human-produced emissions.

The report calls for an urgent reform of food systems, suggesting three interdependent actions:

Firstly, globaI dietary patterns need to move towards more plant-heavy diets (from all food groups and from sustainable food systems, see point 3!), mainly due to the disproportionate impact of animal agriculture on biodiversity, land use and the environment. Such a shift, coupled with the reduction of global food waste, would reduce demand and the pressure on the environment and land, benefit the health of populations around the world, and help reduce the risk of pandemics.

Dietary change is necessary to enable land to be returned to nature, and to allow widespread adoption of nature-friendly farming without increasing the pressure to convert natural land to agriculture. The more the first action is taken up in the form of dietary change, the more scope there is for the second and third actions.

Secondly, more land needs to be protected and set aside for nature. The greatest gains for biodiversity will occur when we preserve or restore whole ecosystems. Therefore, we need to avoid converting land for agriculture. Human dietary shifts are essential in order to preserve existing native ecosystems and restore those that have been removed or degraded.

Thirdly, we need to farm (and support farming) in a more nature-friendly, biodiversity-supporting way, limiting the use of inputs and replacing monoculture with polyculture farming practices.

These actions are for ALL of us to take a system-wide approach to account for the impacts of food systems, develop guidance for change at the level we are working at, and translate these into targets that we measure and track together.

ReFED (website)

ReFED is a national nonprofit dedicated to ending food loss and waste across the U.S. food system by advancing data-driven solutions. They have a holistic view of the food system and are working to achieve a 50% food waste reduction in accordance with the United Nations’ 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. The have purposeful action:

  • That’s driven by solutions to specific challenges.
  • That’s grounded in data.
  • That’s targeted to where it can benefit the most.
  • That’s coordinated across multiple stakeholders and evaluated to ensure success.

The have 10 modeled solutions for which a quantitative estimate of effectiveness in diverting food waste, as well as cost and benefit expectations to multiple stakeholders. The were compiled based on data from solution providers, scientific studies, and expert guidance: https://refed.org/action-areas/reshape-consumer-environments

Farm to Fork strategy for a fair, healthy and environmentally-friendly food system (EU, 2020)

The Farm to Fork Strategy is part of the European Green Deal aiming to make food systems fair, healthy and environmentally-friendly. Food systems cannot be resilient to crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic if they are not sustainable. We need to redesign our food systems which today account for nearly one-third of global GHG emissions, consume large amounts of natural resources, result in biodiversity loss and negative health impacts (due to both under- and over-nutrition) and do not allow fair economic returns and livelihoods for all actors, in particular for primary producers. Putting our food systems on a sustainable path also brings new opportunities for operators in the food value chain. New technologies and scientific discoveries, combined with increasing public awareness and demand for sustainable food, will benefit all stakeholders.

The Farm to Fork Strategy aims to accelerate our transition to a sustainable food system that should:

  • have a neutral or positive environmental impact
  • help to mitigate climate change and adapt to its impacts
  • reverse the loss of biodiversity
  • ensure food security, nutrition and public health, making sure that everyone has access to sufficient, safe, nutritious, sustainable food
  • preserve affordability of food while generating fairer economic returns, fostering competitiveness of the EU supply sector and promoting fair trade