Sustainability > Case Studies > Foodservice

Role: Foodservice

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

Aquatic Foods Toolkit (2023)

A World of Aquatic Foods Resources: Open-access resources designed to empower chefs, foodservice, consumer packaged goods entrepreneurs, healthcare professionals, and other aquatic food advocates in promoting bivalves and sea vegetables.

🌐 You’ll get: Free, open-access toolkits, packed with evidence-based resources, eater insights, tested messaging, nutritional guidance, and inspiring recipes. Access to an interactive Aquatic Foods Ecosystem Map, so you can connect with others creating impact through sea vegetables and bivalves.

Aquatic foods—foods derived from aquatic animals, plants, or algae—have long been enjoyed traditionally by many cultures through the centuries. They have been highlighted in recent landmark reports for their ability to help build a healthy, diversified, equitable, and sustainable food future. Few topics today at the intersection of food, cuisine, health, and sustainability are more exciting than the vast potential of foods from the sea.

For this project, Food for Climate League joined forces with Food + Planet (F+P) and set out to develop narratives that can equip foodservice, CPG, retail, and nutrition professionals to market and promote sustainable aquatic foods successfully. With funding from Builders Initiative, they developed evidence-based health and wellness messaging and narratives for sustainable and nutritious aquatic foods, namely bivalves and sea vegetables.

🪸 The research outlined in the toolkits is a mix of qualitative and quantitative work conducted in 2022 to understand the aquatic foods landscape, including current and potential focus points and narratives around sustainable aquatic foods.

Strategies for reducing meat consumption within college and university settings: A systematic review and meta-analysis (2023 March)

Citation: Chang KB, Wooden A, Rosman L, Altema-Johnson D and Ramsing R (2023) Strategies for reducing meat consumption within college and university settings: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Front. Sustain. Food Syst. 7:1103060. doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2023.1103060 (open access)

  • Introduction: Despite the considerable public and planetary health benefits associated with reducing the amount of meat consumed in high-income countries, there is a limited empirical understanding of how these voluntary changes in food choice can be effectively facilitated across different settings. While prior reviews have given us broad insights into the varying capacities of behavior change strategies to promote meaningful reductions in meat consumption, none have compared how they perform relative to each other within a uniform dining context.
  • Methods: To address this gap in the literature, we synthesized the available research on university-implemented meat reduction interventions and examined the variations in the success rates and effect estimates associated with each of the three approaches identified in our systematic review.
  • Results: From our analyses of the 31 studies that met our criteria for inclusion (n = 31), we found that most were successful in reducing the amount of meat consumed within university settings. Moreover, independent of the number of individual strategies being used, multimodal interventions were found to be more reliable and effective in facilitating these changes in food choice than interventions targeting the choice architecture of the retail environment or conscious decision-making processes alone.
  • Discussion: In addition to demonstrating the overall value of behavior change initiatives in advancing more sustainable dining practices on college and university campuses, this study lends further insights into the merits and mechanics underlying strategically integrated approaches to dietary change. Further investigations exploring the persistence and generalizability of these effects and intervention design principles are needed.

3.4.1. Success rate variations

Figure 4. Grouped bar graph comparing the proportion of interventions associated with significant reductions in meat consumption across each investigated approach. Relative to other approaches, multimodal interventions were more likely to lead to significant reductions in the amount of meat consumed within university settings (p = 0.029). No increases in meat consumption were reported.

Over two-thirds of the included interventions were associated with significant reductions in meat consumption (67.7%). The remaining interventions yielded no differences in behavior (32.3%), with none of the included studies reporting any increases in meat consumption resulting from negative reactance or rebound effects.

Between the three investigated approaches, multimodal interventions were significantly more likely to be associated with reductions in meat consumption than those targeting conscious decision-making processes or the choice architecture of the retail environment alone (p = 0.029) (see Figure 4). There was no difference in the rate of success across interventions targeting the choice architecture of the retail environment and conscious decision-making process.

Interventions using at least two strategies concurrently were also more likely to be associated with reductions in meat consumption than interventions using a single strategy in isolation (p = 0.024), though both sets of interventions significantly reduced the amount of meat consumed within university settings on at least half of the evaluated occasions. Interventions that used promotional messaging strategies, in particular, were successful 57.1% of the time when used in isolation and 76.0% of the time when used in combination with other strategies (p = 0.029).

When comparing the performance between multimodal interventions and unimodal interventions leveraging two or more strategies, multimodal interventions were associated with a higher rate of success (100%, compared to 50.0%) and a greater overall effect on food choice (OR = 2.88 [1.95, 4.64]), compared to (OR = 2.13 [1.64, 3.05]).

There were no significant differences in the success rates associated with interventions conducted in Europe and North America (p = 0.28).

*Correspondence: Kenjin B. Chang, kbc45@cornell.edu

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

SEAFOOD TOMORROW (2021)

cover of the book
Wilson, Annette M., Reuver, Marieke, Santos, Marta, & Marques, António. (2021). SEAFOODTOMORROW Key Achievements Booklet – Nutritious, safe and sustainable seafood for the future. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4696236

SEAFOOD TOMORROW was a €7m European Union Horizon 2020-funded project that ran from 2017-2021 that aimed to develop innovative sustainable solutions for improving the safety and dietary properties of seafood in Europe.

Addressing the challenge to meet the growing market need for safe and sustainable seafood, the project generated new knowledge to develop commercial solutions for improving the socio-economic and environmental sustainability of the European seafood production and processing industry.

This interactive booklet summarises the key achievements of the SEAFOOD TOMORROW project: Nutritious, safe and sustainable seafood for consumers of tomorrow.

This booklet is for all seafood stakeholders, including industry representatives, policy- and decision-makers, and seafood consumers.

They present the Eco-Innovative Solutions and Key Exploitable Results generated by the SEAFOOD TOMORROW team, including their potential or realised impact, a summary of dissemination and exploitation activities carried out, and the next steps needed to ensure maximum uptake and legacy of the SEAFOOD TOMORROW outcomes.

Marine Conservation Society & Good Fish Guide (website)

Click to visit the MSC Good Fish Guide

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.

FishChoice Calculator (Website)

About us
Click to go to FishChoice, your personal fish calculator

This is a personal fish consumption calculator. Seafood has been recognised as a high-quality, healthy and safe food type and is one of the most important food commodities consumed worldwide. However, seafood, like other types of food, can also be a source of harmful environmental contaminants with potential to impact on human health.

FISHCHOICE is part of the H2020 project SEAFOODTOMORROW, aimed at assessing food safety issues related to priority contaminants present in seafood as a result of environmental contamination and evaluating their impact on public health.

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

Guide to a healthy and low-cost diet for families with children (2020)(Spanish)

Covers of the two documents

The ICDA SFS Toolkit Regional Contact for Spain, Júlia Muñoz (@juliamunoz_dn in our COP), collaborated with her colleagues (Dr, RD Elena Carrillo, RD Marta Anguera, and Dr Irene Cussó) in the development of this document to help citizens follow a healthier and more sustainable diet at the minimum cost. This guideline is based on the results of a previous European-lead research  carried out at Blanquerna School of Health Sciences Ramon Llull University  to promote a healthy and economical diet for different types of families. They then worked with the Barcelona City Council to publish two documents:

1) Guide to a healthy and low-cost diet for families with children. The guide can serve municipal professionals and other social agents or entities to support families in situations of social vulnerability in the field of food. The ultimate goal is to have a useful tool that families and entities can use to quickly manage the fundamental right to adequate food with a small budget.

2) A booklet on Healthy and economic food for families with children. This is a practical booklet for all citizens, mainly aimed at families with children and adolescents from 18 months to 18 years old, especially in situations of economic difficulties, which provides them with guidance and recommendations to prepare healthy and economic daily meals. The guide provides a shopping list for different types of families, seasonal menus, and an estimated cost for one person. The sample menus were prepared based on recommendations of the Spanish Society of Community Nutrition and the Public Health Agency of Catalonia.

Júlia explains that the recommendations include practices for food sustainability such as the use of leftovers to create new recipes or select seasonal foods. Given the current situation of increasing food insecurity due to the rise of food prices, and acknowledging that when people suffer from stress they tend to eat convenient and non-healthy foods (which have a high environmental impact apart from impairing health), it is important to identify these types of resources to keep promoting sustainable diets in a practical way.

Report

Harassment or bullying behavior
Contains mature or sensitive content
Contains misleading or false information
Contains abusive or derogatory content
Contains spam, fake content or potential malware

Block Member?

Please confirm you want to block this member.

You will no longer be able to:

  • See blocked member's posts
  • Mention this member in posts
  • Invite this member to groups
  • Message this member
  • Add this member as a connection

Please note: This action will also remove this member from your connections and send a report to the site admin. Please allow a few minutes for this process to complete.

Report

You have already reported this .