Perda e desperdício de alimentos em Unidades de Alimentação e Nutrição: proposta de ferramenta para gestão

Studies related to Food Loss and Waste (FLW) in gastronomic enterprises are important and necessary to analyze the environmental, social and economic performance of this sector. In this sense, a market niche has emerged: Food and Nutrition Units (FNUs), which offer more sustainable services. However, there are no regulations or even specific management tools that allow measuring sustainability of an FNU in FLW control. From the Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) perspective, this paper presents a proposal for a tool to manage and compare the performance of commercial Food and Nutrition Units regarding Food Loss and Waste control throughout the production process. LCIA is a qualitative stage of the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) that allows evaluating the potential environmental impact of an activity, process, product or service. Based on factors identified in the literature that are related to FLW, a survey was conducted with 14 ad hoc consultants holding degrees in Nutrition, specialized knowledge on the topic addressed and/or practical experience in FNUs. The participants were asked to rate the factors on a scale from 1 to 10 according to their detection and resolution ease and to their severity. As a result, a spreadsheet was generated with 64 factors to be monitored in FNUs and which provides numerical results that vary according to the enterprises' efficiency in FLW control. It is a versatile instrument that allows adaptations according to the type of food service offered and which can render the comparison between different FNUs and their processes less subjective.