Le mense universitarie e lo spreco alimentare: alcune riflessioni e possibili soluzioni al problema

It is well known nowadays that food waste emerges as one of the rare problems that crosses multiple social issues, from food security and environmental degradation to economic efficiency. Wasted food, according to several reports, has to be related with the number of people in the world affected by chronic food deprivation. On the other side, FAO reported that one-third of the edible parts of food produced for human consumption is wasted globally. These high figures give us a general overview of a paradoxical problem that has a tremendous impact worldwide. Numerous studies shed some lights on food waste as a behavioral problem and measured the effectiveness of different initiatives on food waste prevention at school, but, there is limited research about how university canteen customers’ habits affect the level of food waste produced. Starting from these premises this study proposed an overview on a theoretical model, with the aim to explain how the salient values, with regard to eating interplay, affect food consumption behavior and customers’ perceived food waste generation at a university canteen.