A rapid assessment tool of environmental and economic impacts of food waste in collective catering: an example from 8 European school canteens

Food waste (FW) in collective catering settings remains a critical barrier to sustainable food systems, due to its magnitude and multidimensional negative impacts. Food waste reduction and prevention measures are often difficult to design and implement due to the lack of specific data on the amount of waste generated, but also on the associated environmental impacts and costs. To tackle this lock-in, this study presents and validates a novel tool for assessing both the environmental and economic impacts of FW in collective catering. Grounded in Life Cycle Thinking (LCT), the tool integrates multiple sustainability assessments to support practitioners in identifying strategies and leverage points for FW reduction. The tool was tested with real-world data from eight school canteens in Austria and Italy. Results unveil cross-country differences in FW amounts, composition and environmental and economic impacts. Findings underline the need for tailored FW prevention strategies to account for different food service contexts and cultural norms. Suggestions were formulated to adapt portion sizes in Italy, and to envision redistribution of unserved food in Austria. Despite national differences, absolute sustainability analyses indicated that several hotspots—including land use, climate change, and ecotoxicity—exceeded planetary boundaries by multiple times in both countries' samples, reflecting school menus’ dependence on resource-intensive foods. The study demonstrates how coupling FW monitoring with environmental monetization can strengthen diagnostics, offer benchmark values for school food services, and support reduction efforts to ensure compliance with forthcoming EU FW reduction targets. By embedding the tool in catering management, practitioners can integrate environmental and economic considerations in the prioritization of FW reduction interventions and in menu redesign.