Abstract

RIBEIRO, Flávia Mota  and  MARTINS, Margarida Liz. Evaluation of meals production food losses in school food units. Acta Port Nutr [online]. 2020, n.22, pp.16-21. ISSN 2183-5985.

Introduction: Food waste is a problem present in our daily, and its reduction is essential. Thus, it is necessary to quantify it both during the meals production and after consumption, aiming to identify the phases with high food waste values, targeting its reduction. Objectives: To evaluate food losses in the school lunch production provided in primary school canteens from a Portuguese Municipality. Methodology: Data collection was carried out in 18 food units, through monitoring all stages of meals production. Losses resulted from the debarking, cutting and boning processes and the leftovers corresponded to all food prepared and not served were evaluated. The constituents of the main dish were classified as protein component, carbohydrate source and vegetable source. All quantification procedures were performed using the aggregate weighing method. Results: The production losses of 10 different meals, corresponding to 1451 lunches and the leftovers of 18 different meals, corresponding to a total of 1998 lunches were evaluated. A mean value for losses of 14.2% was observed, being 20.7% of the debarking process and 6.2% of the cutting and deboning process. Leftovers corresponded to 14.6%, resulting a mean value of 14.4% from soup and 14.9% of leftovers from main dish. Conclusions: The high value of losses found demonstrates the improvement need concerning to meals preparation techniques. Leftovers values are above the limits recommended by the literature (3%), pointing the need for intervention, in order to reduce food waste.

Keywords : School lunch; Food waste; Losses; Leftovers; Food unit.

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