Sustainable food for all: challenges and potentials of the German public catering sector

Benjamin Hennchen, Martina Schäfer, Benjamin Hennchen, Martina Schäfer, Benjamin Hennchen and Martina Schäfer

Chapter Chapter 13 in The Elgar Companion to Consumer Behaviour and the Sustainable Development Goals, 2025, pp 205-223 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Ensuring worldwide equal access to nutritious food and promoting sustainable and healthy production and consumption practices are two important Sustainable Development Goals. Public procurement in the food sector has the potential for relevant contributions to achieve these goals since it reaches a broad variety of target groups. In the German context, the public catering sector has gained political attention with the aim of encouraging sustainable and healthy consumer behaviour. For instance, the German government’s Food and Nutrition Strategy calls for significant improvements in catering services for day-care centres and schools, canteens, healthcare facilities and hospitals. This chapter provides a systematic overview of the state of research in Germany on improving food environments in public catering that enable consumers to adopt responsible food choices. Insights from the author’s own research on sustainable catering will also be presented. The findings will encompass the challenges and potentials of providing more vegetarian/vegan, healthy and regional/organic food options in consideration of the direct food environment and external factors shaping it. The findings point towards the importance of value-oriented public catering, which creates enabling food environments to realise the sector’s potential and to meet sustainability targets.

Keywords: German public catering sector; Food environment; Food procurement; Nutritional practices; Sustainability goals (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035325054
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