TY - JOUR
T1 - Holistic advisory tool to evaluate and enhance sustainable food procurement practices in professional kitchens
AU - Schafer, Luke J.
AU - Nielsen, Albert Rise
AU - Inisan, Anna
AU - Henriksen, Christian Bugge
AU - Welker, Edith
AU - Kuntzsch, Isabel
AU - Nielsen, Line Rise
AU - Lysak, Marin
AU - Arendrup, Torsten
AU - Swiader, Malgorzata
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 The Authors
PY - 2025
Y1 - 2025
N2 - Societal-wide transformation of our food system is necessary to secure sustainable food for the future. Such a large-scale transformation requires pulling equally large levers of change. Food procurement offers one such lever as it is an aggregator of food demand for the masses. In order to measure food procurement, an all-encompassing interpretation of a sustainable meal is needed to account for all social, economic and environmental variables. In addition, professional kitchens and procurement officers alike need to be equipped with holistic tools and simple outputs for communicating sustainable progress. This study outlines the development of a holistic advisory tool that is co-created together with stakeholder feedback and industry experts. The tool is a cloud service built with open source tools that rely on indicators focused on the biosphere base of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Wedding Cake Framework. Potential indicators are screened using a novel interpretation of SMART criteria, the SMARTc Food Procurement Indicator Selection Criteria to ensure outputs are easy to estimate based on current data, can be achieved within current budgets and are easily communicable in the fast-paced gastronomy sector. While there is no literary consensus on the best food procurement variables, nor how to measure them, the holistic advisory tool focuses on Plant-Meat-Dairy Ratio, organic percentage, carbon footprint and seasonality. Moreover, in the absence of industry standards, such a comprehensive tool offers the possibility to measure and compare sustainable food procurement to planetary health diet recommendations and between professional kitchens themselves. Preliminary results are positive, however further development is needed to improve precision, comparability and interpretability. The ongoing development and widespread application of this tool will aid the process of procuring sustainable food while simultaneously contributing to measurable transformation of the food system.
AB - Societal-wide transformation of our food system is necessary to secure sustainable food for the future. Such a large-scale transformation requires pulling equally large levers of change. Food procurement offers one such lever as it is an aggregator of food demand for the masses. In order to measure food procurement, an all-encompassing interpretation of a sustainable meal is needed to account for all social, economic and environmental variables. In addition, professional kitchens and procurement officers alike need to be equipped with holistic tools and simple outputs for communicating sustainable progress. This study outlines the development of a holistic advisory tool that is co-created together with stakeholder feedback and industry experts. The tool is a cloud service built with open source tools that rely on indicators focused on the biosphere base of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Wedding Cake Framework. Potential indicators are screened using a novel interpretation of SMART criteria, the SMARTc Food Procurement Indicator Selection Criteria to ensure outputs are easy to estimate based on current data, can be achieved within current budgets and are easily communicable in the fast-paced gastronomy sector. While there is no literary consensus on the best food procurement variables, nor how to measure them, the holistic advisory tool focuses on Plant-Meat-Dairy Ratio, organic percentage, carbon footprint and seasonality. Moreover, in the absence of industry standards, such a comprehensive tool offers the possibility to measure and compare sustainable food procurement to planetary health diet recommendations and between professional kitchens themselves. Preliminary results are positive, however further development is needed to improve precision, comparability and interpretability. The ongoing development and widespread application of this tool will aid the process of procuring sustainable food while simultaneously contributing to measurable transformation of the food system.
KW - Food procurement
KW - Food system transformation
KW - Plant-meat-diary ratio
KW - Professional kitchens
KW - Science-based tools
KW - Sustainable meals
U2 - 10.1016/j.ijgfs.2024.101087
DO - 10.1016/j.ijgfs.2024.101087
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85211966036
VL - 39
JO - International Journal of Gastronomy and Food Science
JF - International Journal of Gastronomy and Food Science
SN - 1878-450X
M1 - 101087
ER -