Who Cleans the Plate? Quantity and Type of Food Waste in 78 Primary Schools’ Canteens in Italy

Luca Falasconi (), Matteo Boschini, Claudia Giordano, Clara Cicatiello, Fabrizio Alboni, Federico Nassivera, Stefania Troiano, Francesco Marangon, Andrea Segrè and Silvio Franco
Additional contact information
Luca Falasconi: Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences, University of Bologna, Via G. Fanin, 50, 40127 Bologna, Italy
Matteo Boschini: Public Health Department of Bologna, Via Montebello, 6, 40121 Bologna, Italy
Claudia Giordano: Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke), 00790 Helsinki, Finland
Clara Cicatiello: Department for Innovation in Biological, Agro-Food and Forest Systems, University of Tuscia, Via San Camillo de Lellis snc, 01100 Viterbo, Italy
Fabrizio Alboni: Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences, University of Bologna, Via G. Fanin, 50, 40127 Bologna, Italy
Federico Nassivera: Department of Agricultural, Food, Environmental and Animal Sciences, University of Udine, Via Tomadini, 30/a, 33100 Udine, Italy
Stefania Troiano: Department of Economics and Statistics, University of Udine, Via Tomadini, 30/a, 33100 Udine, Italy
Francesco Marangon: Department of Economics and Statistics, University of Udine, Via Tomadini, 30/a, 33100 Udine, Italy
Andrea Segrè: Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences, University of Bologna, Via G. Fanin, 50, 40127 Bologna, Italy
Silvio Franco: Department of Economics, Engineering, Society, Business Organization, University of Tuscia, Via del Paradiso, 47, 01100 Viterbo, Italy

Sustainability, 2025, vol. 17, issue 17, 1-14

Abstract: In advanced economies, most food waste occurs at the downstream stages of the supply chain; within the EU, it has been estimated that 64.57% of food waste occurs at the consumption stage, with about 5.4 million tons (9.45% of the total) being generated in food service. This study aims to contribute to this stream of research by providing evidence about the quantity of food waste produced in Italian primary schools and discussing the results against the evidence available in other EU countries. This research is based on a large-scale study involving 78 primary schools and over 11,000 students for a total number of almost 110,000 monitored meals. The results show that the amount of food not consumed at lunch is 21.7% of the food prepared every day. Plate waste accounts for almost 90 g/day per capita and the total amount of wasted food, including unserved food, accounts for 117 g/day per capita. To our knowledge, this study represents the largest sample size monitored in Italy under the framework of the EC Delegated Decision (EU) 2019/1597 on food waste measurement. Given its scale and adherence to the EU’s standardized methodology, this dataset should serve as the reference data for Italy reported to Eurostat, as it is based on direct measurements rather than estimates or secondary data sources. This underscores the importance of systematic, comparable data collection for tracking progress on food waste reduction at both national and European levels.

Keywords: Food waste; school canteens; plate waste; food service; citizen science; public procurement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/17/7836/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/17/7836/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:17:p:7836-:d:1738557

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().