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Challenges of Food Service towards Sustainability Beyond Food Waste

Ada Rocha 1,* and Cláudia Viegas 2
1
GreenUPorto – Sustainable Agrifood Production Research Centre/Inov4Agro, DGAOT, Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto, Rua da Agrária 747, 4485-646 Vairão, Portugal
2
H&TRC—Health & Technology Research Center, ESTeSL—Escola Superior de Tecnologia da Saúde, Instituto Politécnico de Lisboa, Portugal
*
For correspondence.
Academic Editor:
Highlights of Sustainability, 2023, 2(1), 10–15.
Received: 29 November 2022    Accepted: 22 February 2023    Published: 24 February 2023
Abstract
Food service comprises the production of meals consumed outside the home, including consumers from all age groups and in different sectors, such as schools (from kindergarten to university), public and private companies, the health sector (from hospitals to elderly care institutions), military, sports facilities and restaurants (from fine dining to fast-food). Food service units (FSU) achieved importance and responsibility not only for feeding the population but also as an important setting for public health interventions, potentially educating consumers and modulating behaviours through the meals provided. In addition to its socioeconomic impact, the food service industry has a strong environmental impact. More sustainable food service starts with the basics: minimizing environmental impact by reducing carbon footprint. Food service industry is being encouraged to make choices that positively impact the environment. Nevertheless, most of the efforts and research made in the last years have been focused on evaluating and reducing food waste. This article focuses on strategies that could be implemented beyond food waste, and act on changing the food offer towards health and sustainability while promoting consumers’ behaviour change.
Keywords
Copyright © 2023 Rocha and Viegas. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use and distribution provided that the original work is properly cited.
Funding
This work is funded by National Funds through FCT - Foundation forScience and Technology under the Projects UIDB/05608/2020 and UIDP/05608/2020, UIDB/05748/2020 and UIDP/05748/2020 and Agri-Food XXI I&D&I project NORTE-0145-FEDER-000041.
Cite this Article
Rocha, A., & Viegas, C. (2023). Challenges of Food Service towards Sustainability Beyond Food Waste. Highlights of Sustainability, 2(1), 10–15. https://doi.org/10.54175/hsustain2010002
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