Improving the Sustainability of Hospital Food Service by Measuring Food Waste and its Associated Water Footprint

In 2022, Italy has been the third European food waster producing more than 8 Mt of food waste of which restaurants and food service account for the 6%. It has been estimated that in the Italian hospital food service, 30 meals out of 100 served become waste. To improve the sustainability of hospital food service is essential to minimize food waste production and its associated environmental impacts. In the light of these premises, the aim of this study is to measure food waste production and its associated water footprint. The study is based on the life cycle approach, a cradle-to-grave one, and the mass-balance principle is used to estimate food and water flows. Water footprint will be calculated with the volumetric-oriented methodology. Nine hospitals and 60 hospital wards located in Apulia, belonging to the Local Health Authority (ASL) of Bari, are the observed study area. The sample size is composed of 3408 patients and the study period includes one single week per year from 2021 to 2023. Moreover, to overcome the lack of data that affects this type of analysis the use of artificial intelligence-based tools will be discussed. The results achieved are useful to improve the sustainability of hospital food service, highlighting how it is possible to manage menus increasing food waste reduction and the related water footprint.