This project establishes actions to back up the words calling for a reduction in the amount of food we waste. This concerns the development of sustainable, healthy and user-specific concepts for cafeterias, festivals, amusement parks, hotels, conference centres and restaurants.
In Denmark, wasted food represents an annual economic loss of DKK 16 billion. A substantial and rising portion of food consumption in Denmark takes place outside the home, for example when we eat at the company cafeteria, go out to a restaurant or visit Danish tourist attractions and amusement parks. The Danish food service industry is currently experiencing annual growth rates in the range of 20-35 %.
The challenge
The food service industry has an increasing responsibility to be offering sustainable solutions for the meals it serves. This does not mean that fundamental requirements for good-tasting and healthy foods have disappeared, but rather quite the opposite. Increasing attention is being devoted to health and more consumers are demanding healthy meals, also when they are away from home. They simply no longer accept the high fat content of monotonous cafeteria food, unappealing buffets or even unhealthy fast food in amusement parks. For the suppliers, this poses a massive challenge. They have to make food that is both tasty and healthy, while trying to stay focused on sustainability at the same.
Work areas
Case activities
The project will work with tangible cases involving cafeterias, conference centres, hotels, restaurants, tourist attractions and festivals. The purpose of the case activities is to develop:
- Healthy, sustainable and high-quality meals produced from local raw materials and using the cafeteria as a creative food experience laboratory and test platform.
- An innovative, useable concept for effectively reducing food waste from catering for large gatherings such as conferences, events and the like.
- A concept for sustainable and user-specific food service at Danish tourist attractions and festivals.
- A Web-based concept for the simultaneous ordering of tickets and food service.
The objective is for wasted food in the cases to comprise at most 10 % of the purchased raw materials (in contrast to up to 40 % today).
Knowledgebase construction
- Detailed examination of supply flows and climate burdens.
- Development of sustainable, easily managed and high-quality meal concepts.
- Development of LCA module for reducing food waste per meal service.
- Concept for clarifying user preferences for meals.
- Acquisition of knowledge