Food waste in catering industry and its impacts on resources and environment in China (Chinese with English abstract)

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J. Resour. Ecol. 2013 4 (4) 337-343
DOI:10.5814/j.issn.1674-764x.2013.04.006
www.jorae.cn
Dec., 2013 Journal of Resources and Ecology Vol.4 No.4
Report
Received: 2013-10-28 Accepted: 2013-11-27
Foundation: National Science Foundation of China (71233007).
* Corresponding author: CHENG Shengkui. Email: chengsk@igsnrr.ac.cn.
1 Introduction
Food waste is receiving increasing attention from various
research elds and the mainstream media (Kantor et al. 1997;
Keith et al. 2002; Xu 2005; Edgar 2005; Garnett 2008; Hall
et al. 2009; Cuellar and Webber 2010; Godfray et al. 2010;
Gustavsson et al. 2011; Venkat 2011). Experts at the Reuter’s
food and agriculture summit in Chicago estimated that
globally 30% to 50% of produced food is wasted during the
food supply chain (Chen 2012), a result that is corroborated
by Godfray et al. (2010) and Gustavsson et al. (2011).
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the
United Nations (FAO), roughly one-third of served food (1.3
billion tons per year) is not consumed and wasted globally;
670 million tons of which is wasted in industrialized
countries and 630 million tons in developing countries
(Gustavsson et al. 2011). The quantity and proportion of
food waste alone is staggering, but the underlying reasons
differ between developed and developing countries. In
developing nations, more than 40% of losses occur at the
postharvest and processing stages due to the absence of food-
chain infrastructure and a lack of knowledge or investment
in storage technologies at farms (Nellemann et al. 2009;
Gustavsson et al. 2011). In developed nations more than 40%
of losses occur at the retail and consumer stages for a variety
of reasons (Godfray et al. 2010; Gustavsson et al. 2011).
Per capita food wastage by consumers in Europe and North-
America amounts to 95–115 kg y-1, while the gure in Sub-
Saharan Africa and South/Southeast Asia is only 6–11 kg
y-1 (Gustavsson et al. 2011). Food waste not only threatens
world food security but also negatively effects resources,
the environment and human health (Hall et al. 2009; Cuellar
and Webber 2010), and has substantial implications for
sustainable development (Godfray et al. 2010; Kummu et al.
2012).
Food waste is growing in importance across China (Chen
et al. 2010; Tai et al. 2011), particularly in the catering
industry (Xu 2005 and 2007; Lu 2006; Wang 2010; Zhang
et al. 2010; Jiang et al. 2011; Liu et al. 2013). With rapid
urban economic growth, exploding urbanization, growing
community living standards and a fast pace of work and life,
more Chinese choose to consume food away from home
(FAFH) (Ma 2000; Dong and Hu 2010), and this has driven a
boom in the restaurant industry (Ding 2009; Chinese National
Bureau of Statistics et al. 2011; Zhang 2012). Although the
food wasted by consumers in catering (FWCC) has received
An Overview of the Resources and Environmental Issues from
Wasted Food in Urban Catering across China
GAO Liwei1, 2, CHENG Shengkui1*, CAO Xiaochang1, 2, ZHANG Dan1, LIU Xiaojie1, QIN Qi1, 2 and LIU Yao1, 2
1 Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing 100101, China;
2 University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
Abstract: There is growing global concern over food waste and its impacts on resources, environmental
issues and food security, especially in developing countries. However, knowledge of food waste, in
particular, the food wasted by consumers in restaurants, is entirely inadequate in China. Here, based on
media reports and documents about food waste we provide an overview of food wasted by consumers
in restaurants in China. We roughly estimated total food waste in order to uncover the seriousness of
this large issue. We collected international literature referring to food waste and provided a detailed
explanation of the resources and environmental costs associated with food waste. Ultimately we propose
a conceptual diagram on research into catering food waste by consumers to evaluate resources and
environmental costs based on life cycle assessment in China. This work will stimulate interdisciplinary
research in this eld.
Key words: food consumption; food waste; resources and environmental costs; restaurant; catering; China

Journal of Resources and Ecology Vol.4 No.4, 2013
338
comprehensive attention and frequent news coverage
(Lu 2006; Wang 2010; Jiang et al. 2011; Xu et al. 2011),
the issue has not been addressed by Chinese researchers.
Therefore, this paper focuses on FWCC and the signicant
resource and environmental impacts associated with food
waste. Ultimately we propose a research framework based
on life cycle assessment to evaluate the effects of FWCC in
China. Our aim is to stimulate further work in this eld.
2 FWCC in the Chinese catering industry
Since the early 1990s, the proportion of food loss and waste
from “farm to fork” has reached 18.1% in China, of which
the post-consumer segment (consumer segment) accounted
for almost one third, followed by harvest stage (4.9%)
(Zhan 1995). However, in recent years, the rate of food loss
for grains across the total supply chain was 19% in China,
with the consumer segment responsible for the single
largest portion of food waste of 7.3% (Liu et al. 2013).
Therefore, in addition to maximizing crop yields, reducing
food wastage, especially in the consumer segment, will be
signicant to ensuring food security in China.
It is estimated there are 3.5 million catering enterprises
in China including large, medium and small restaurants,
snack and fast-food outlets, and cafeterias. Food wasted in
Chengdu city was investigated by Wang and Xu (2012), and
showed that 26.7% of served food was wasted in 2011. In
Beijing, compared with food wasted at home (0.07 kg per
capita per day), the magnitude of food wasted in restaurants
was much higher (0.3 kg per capita per day) (Zhang et al.
2010). Xu (2005) investigated food wasted in restaurants of
different classes (large, medium and small), and found that
food waste accounted for 11.1% of total food consumed.
Among animal-based food served in Beijing, 14.7% is
wasted; 15.6% of plant-based food is wasted (Xu 2005).
Based on data collected from news and reports related to
FWCC, we estimated that food waste in provincial capitals
was roughly 6 million tons in 2008 (Fig. 1). Based on city
size, the amount of food wasted in cities was divided into
ve levels: the highest level cities (Beijing and Shanghai)
produced 1000–1600 tons of food waste per day; second
level cities (such as Changsha, Nanjing) produced 600–1000
tons; third level cities (e.g. Fuzhou and Taiyuan) produced
360–600 tons; fourth level cities (e.g. Shenyang) produced
150–360 tons; and the lowest level cities produced less than
100 tons (Fig. 1). Taking Hefei as an example, there are
Fig. 1 Amount of
food wasted (left)
and food waste
per capita (right) in
catering industries
in provincial capitals
(not including
Taiwan Province).
Notes: Calculated using reports and the population of provincial cities (tourist populations considered in Beijing and Lhasa).
Haerbin
Changchun
Shenyang
Tianjin
Beijing
Huhehaote
Wulumuqi
Xining
Lanzhou
Yinchuan
Taiyuan Jinan
Xi'an
Zhengzhou
Lasa
Chengdu
Chongqing Wuhan
Hefei
Nanjing
Shanghai
Hangzhou
Changsha
Kunming Guiyang
Nanning Guangzhou
Fuzhou
Nanchang
Haikou
Unit: t d-1
N
0-150
0 km1000500
150-360
360-600
600-1000
1000-1600
Haerbin
Changchun
Shenyang
Tianjin
Beijing
Huhehaote
Wulumuqi
Xining
Lanzhou
Yinchuan
Taiyuan Jinan
Xi'an
Zhengzhou
Lasa
Chengdu
Chongqing Wuhan
Hefei
Nanjing
Shanghai
Hangzhou
Changsha
Kunming Guiyang
Nanning Guangzhou
Fuzhou
Nanchang
Haikou
Unit: g capita-1 d-1
N
44-108
0 km1000500
108-172
172-236
236-300
300-364
China’s accelerated urbanization and the rapid development
of its catering industry has considerably increased food
consumption away from the home. Consequently, food
waste has become a serious issue for the urban catering
industry, threatening food security in China. Alongside the
increasi ngly difficult challenge of enhancing g rain yield
in China, reducing food waste, especially catering food
waste, will ensure future food security. Resource inputs
to food production are expended in vain because of food
waste, and the municipal solid waste caused by food waste
compounds the environmental burdens of China’s cities
and increases the cost of garbage disposal. Reducing food
waste in the catering industry has become an urgent matter
for policy-makers and administrators. Photo: GAO Liwei.

CHENG Shengkui, et al.: An Overview of the Resource and Environmental Issues from Wasted Food in Urban Catering across China 339
3350 restaurants in this city, including hotels and collective
canteens, and these waste 500–700 tons of food each day.
Following the above, we also divided per capita food waste
in the catering industry into six levels (see Fig. 1).
Organic components are high in FWCC, and the
proportion of fat and protein are between 16.9%–38.9% and
6.6%–15.9%, respectively (Xu et al. 2011; Wu et al. 2006).
Based on data from China Agriculture University, protein
and fat contained in catering food waste reached eight and
three million tons per year, respectively, equivalent to the
amount of food consumed by 200 million people a year. The
total amount of food wasted in canteens, restaurants and
homes across China can feed 200–300 million people each
year (Wang 2010), which is most probably overestimated.
Another study estimated that the magnitude of wasted food
was equal to 5 million tons of grain yield, nearly equal to
the amount of total grain imported by China (Jiang et al.
2011; Chinese National Bureau of Statistics 2010). Based on
a 10% waste ratio (the actual value is greater than that) in
retail sales (Jiang et al. 2011), food wastage caused a value
loss of 150 billion CNY in the catering industry, equivalent
to 8.4% of the gross domestic product (1780 billion CNY)
of Beijing in 2012.
Research on FWCC in Beijing indicates that 81%
of i nterview ed consu mers hav e wasted food , 2 8% of
consumers do not consider packing up leftovers, and 53%
of consumers would pack up leftovers only when too much
food was wasted (Wang 2010). Public funds, weddings,
funerals and dinner parties are the major occasions where
food is wasted (Xu 2005), and these situations are both
common in urban and rural regions (Table 1) (Yu and Zhan
2003).
3 Resources and environmental costs related
to food waste
In addition to the actual food wasted, resource inputs (arable
land, irrigated water, fertilizer, oil, coal, natural gas) and
environmental emissions (CO2, NXO, CH4) embedded in the
whole food supply chain are also wasted (Gustavsson et al.
2011; FAO 2013), and these losses have an accumulative
effect (Garnett 2008). Furthermore, the methane gas
generated from food waste is 20–25 times more potent than
carbon dioxide (Garnett 2008).
A FAO report shows that global wasted food consumed
around 250 cubic kilometers of water, which was equivalent
to annual water discharge of the Volga River, or three times
the volume of Lake Geneva. Produced but uneaten food also
relies on almost 1.4 billion hectares of land, which means
about 30% of the world’s agricultural land area is exploited
in vain (FAO 2013). Kummu et al. (2012) calculated the
resources cost associated with food losses and waste within
food supply chains, and found that around one quarter of
global produced food was lost and wasted: representing
24% of total freshwater resources used in food crop
production, 23% of total global cropland area, and 23% of
total global fertilizer use. The USA is the most concerned
Table 1 Selected cases of FWCC in typical Chinese cities.
Region Typical cities Cases of food wasted explained Sources
Northeast of
China
Harbin Based on our most conservative projection, the average amount of
leftovers thrown out in each moderate restaurant per day amounted
to 400 tons and the economic loss caused by food wastage was at
least hundreds of millions of CNY in Harbin
Network of the Chinese people’s
political consultative
[2007-03-28]
North China Beijing Amount of food waste from airplanes each year is 11 thousand tons,
among which food wasted accounts for more than fty percent in
Beijing capital international airport
Network of the Chinese people’s
political consultative
[2007-03-28]
Tianjin Related departments reported that 1500 tons of leftovers were thrown
out in Tianjin
Network of the Chinese people’s
political consultative [2007-03-28]
East China Hangzhou Catering sales revenue reached over 11.9 billion CNY, and the loss
of food on tables was at least 1.1 billion CNY in Hangzhou in 2006
China Youth Daily [2009-03-12]
Central
China
Changsha According to insider estimates, there were 40 buffet restaurants in
Changsha, and if amount of food wasted is 50 kg by each, the loss
of edible food would be 2 tons
The Sanxiang City News
[2005-08-11]
Southern
China
Guangzhou The average catering consumption per capita reached 4143 CNY in
Guangzhou in 2004, which is seven times higher than the national
average level, but largely food was wasted with the growth of
average catering consumption per capita
The Guangzhou Daily [2005]
Southwest
China
Chengdu Interviewed by visiting, the amount of food wasted is astonishing.
When dinning in some canteens, most part of vegetables and sh
in plate was discarded by one young person in four and another
wasted almost a whole bowl of rice
The Western China Metropolis Daily
[2006-10-18]
Northwest Lanzhou There were more than 3000 large-scale restaurants in Lanzhou, and
the amount of food wasted is 550 thousand tons in one year
The Gansu Economic Daily
[2005-08-30]

Journal of Resources and Ecology Vol.4 No.4, 2013
340
area where considerable food is wasted. It was estimated
that food wasted by each American has increased by 50%
since 1974, accounting for more than one quarter of the
total freshwater consumption and 300 million barrels of oil
per year (Kantor et al. 1997). Liu et al. (2013) investigated
food loss in China and waste across the food supply chain,
and found that 19% of grain produced was lost and wasted,
of which the consumer segment contributed significantly
(7.3%). In addition, the water and arable land costs from
food loss and waste were 135 billion cubic meters and 26
million hectares, respectively.
Food waste contributes considerable greenhouse gas
emissions (GHG) from the decomposition of wasted food
after disposal in landlls and from the embedded emissions
associated with its production, processing, transport and
retailing. This second impact requires a life-cycle view of
wasted food (Garnett 2008). It is estimated that the global
footprint of wasted food is equivalent to 3.3 billion tons
of carbon dioxide annually, which was not accounting for
greenhouse gas emissions from land use change, ranking as
the third largest source of emissions after USA and China
(FAO 2013). Venkat (2011) calculated the GHG from food
wasted using life cycle assessment from production to
disposal for each food commodity: avoidable food waste
produced approximately 113 million metric tons of CO2 e
annually, equivalent to 2% of national emissions. Therefore,
reducing food losses and waste may be the best way to cut
down GHG emissions and mitigate anthropogenic climate
change (Garnett 2011).
The catering industry is a product of urbanization. The
rapid development of Chinese urbanization has driven the
diversification of food consumption and changes in food
consumption behaviour. Statistics indicate that the ratio of
animal-based food to total food consumed increased from
10.7% to 22.1% between 1985 and 2010 (Chinese National
Bureau of Statistics 2011). The transformation of food
consumption patterns towards to animal-based food drives
more GHG and resource-intensive food types (Garnett
2011). Therefore, the magnitude of GHG and resource-
intensive food wasted would incur greater resources and
environmental costs than the same plant-based food by
weight (Garnett 2008 and 2011; Hamerschlag and Venkat
2011). Beef, for example, accounting for 16% of total
emissions, was the single largest contributor to emissions
from wasted food in USA, even though the quantity of beef
wasted amounts to less than 2% of total waste (Hamerschlag
and Venkat 2011). This is because of the high emissions
intensity of beef and its low feed conversion efficiency
(Hamerschlag and Venkat 2011). A regional analysis for
Europe finds that food accounts for 31% of the EU-25’s
total GHG impacts, with a further 9% arising from the
hotel and restaurant sector (European Commission 2005).
However, with 65% of China’s population expected to be
urbanized by 2030, the volume of food wasted from food
services in urban China will increase dramatically unless
long-term and effective measures are adopted by government
and policy-makers.
4 Discussion
The reasons for FWCC in China vary, but are most likely
related to Chinese consumption psychology, and the cultural
factors of Mianzi and Lian (Li and Su 2007; Shi et al.
2010). These two dimensions of “face” convey different
messages in everyday China. The notion of Lian used in its
negative form is related to a person’s moral character and
personal integrity. Mianzi, however, is used in compliance
gaining, conflict mediation and requests. The concept is
also important in self reproach, decision making, behavior
regulation, and the effectiveness of requests (Gao 1998).
For example, at a dinner party, the host receives much
Mianzi only if the host prepares as much food as possible
food for guests, and guests must eat as much as possible (Shi
et al. 2012); the host does not care about how much food
will be wasted. This waste is encouraged by an unfortunate
Chinese habit of ordering more at restaurants than can be
eaten by hosts desiring to gain face, and by widespread and
ostentatious dining at public expense (Wu 1996).
Both sustainable food production and consumption are
critical for food security (UNEP 2012). In China, there
has long been concern about food production, but food
consumption has been ignored. For more than six decades,
through implementing reforms, open-policy, technology
and material inputs, increasing amounts of agricultural
products were produced from limited land and water
resources, satisfying the huge food demands of a doubling
population and growing economy, creating a miracle of
feeding 22% of the world’s population using only 7% of the
world’s cultivated land (FAOSTAT 2013). For quite a long
time, China spared no effort to enhance food production
and ensure food security. For example, beef production
increased by a factor of more than 20 from 0.3 million tons
in 1980 to 6.5 million tons in 2010, and contemporaneously,
mutton, poultry, pork and aquatic products increased by
factors of 9, 10, 3.5 and 11 respectively. Fresh milk and
egg production have increased by a factor of 26.5 and 8.8,
respectively. However, total grain production only had a
growth rate of 28.5% during the three decades (FAOSTAT
2013) (Fig. 2). Further improving per unit area yield
will be harder within limited cultivated land resources,
particularly because of challenges such as land competition
from industrialization, urbanization, and infrastructure
development, and ongoing soil erosion and desertication.
Reducing food losses and waste in the food system,
especially in the post-consumer segment, will be critical to
future food security (Garnett 2008).
The growth in China’s food production has paid a heavy
resource and environmental cost (Guo et al. 2010; Beman et
al. 2005; Jane 2011; Fang 2009), but a large proportion of
the food produced at such high cost is wasted at the table (Xu
2005 and 2007) and thrown away, a phenomenon in Chinese
catering that has become normal. Moreover, a more serious
issue is that FWCC is related to a waste of such resources

CHENG Shengkui, et al.: An Overview of the Resource and Environmental Issues from Wasted Food in Urban Catering across China 341
used in production as land, water, energy and leads to
unnecessary CO2 emissions in addition to loss of economic
value of the food produced (Wei et al. 2008; Li et al. 2010;
Xu 2010; Ma et al. 2009; Wei et al. 2009; Liu and He 2011;
Zheng and Zhao 2003). Questions such as where FWCC
goes, what impacts it has on resources and the environment,
and how much FWCC can be recycled should be the focus
of future research.
Life cycle assessment is a technique that assesses
environmental impacts associated with all stages of a
product or a service from-cradle-to-grave and has been
widely applied to food systems (Andersson 2000; Basset-
Mens et al. 2005; Baldwin et al. 2010). Here, we propose a
conceptual diagram for research on FWCC (Fig. 3). First,
we need to establish the what, where, why and how of
food wastage by consumers in restaurants and how much
food is lost. To do that, questionnaires and interviews with
consumers and restaurant managers are needed, as is some
measure of the weight and volume of leftover food. Second,
bottom-up research, tracing back to the source is required:
where is the wasted food from? How is the food transported,
stored, processed and cooked? What are the energy
(electricity, natural gas) and resource (waster, coal) inputs?
Third, research should trace where wasted food goes, and
impacts on resources and the environment. A quantitative
evaluation including GHG and landfill percolating liquid
are needed.
In our opionion, encouraging consumption is not equal
to promoting waste. On the institutional side, we have
large-scale national and international bodies that have been
devoted for decades to increasing plant and animal yields,
and whose complex and costly activities are typically
Fig. 3 Conceptual diagram for
research on FWCC and based
on LCA.
Cereal Arable landVegetables
and fruits
Electric
power
Water Natural gas
and coal
Disposable
table ware
Policy and
technology
1-Catering food preparation
2-Catering food consumption
3-Catering food wasted
Where did the food wasted go?And what is the impacts on resources and environment?
Resources and
environmental costs
Resources and
environmental costs
Fig. 2 Food production between
1980 and 2010 in China.
1975
0
2
6
4
20
8
Pork (million tons)
199019851980
Year
Poultry (million tons)
10
12
16
14
18
0
1
5
2
Mutton (million tons)
3
4
0
1
2
7
3
Beef (million tons)
4
5
6
0
10
20
60
Pork (million tons)
30
50
40
0
20
10
60
Aquatic product (million tons)
30
50
40
0
10
40
Fresh milk (million tons)
20
30
0
10
5
35
Egg (million tons)
15
25
20
30
1995 201020052000 2015
Beef (million tons)
Mutton (million tons)
Poultry (million tons)
Aquatic product (million tons)
Fresh milk (million tons)
Egg (million tons)

Journal of Resources and Ecology Vol.4 No.4, 2013
342
able to add the order of 1% of additional output per year,
yet we do not have a single organization devoted to the
worldwide problem of food loss and wastage (Smil 2004).
Even so, waste minimization initiatives can be achieved
through different strategies and approaches that range from
individually commissioned projects to group projects and
business clubs. Food waste is not just a social problem,
but an integrated issue encompassing consumption,
management and decision-making that requires urgent
interdisciplinary study to begin solving this enormous
problem.
Acknowledgements
This article is sponsored by the National Science Foundation
of China (71233007). We also would like to acknowledge the
many helpful reviews, suggestions, and comments from professor
HUANG Jikun, ZHANG Yangjian and ZHANG Linxiu from
Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research
and Dr. Claus HOLZAPFEL from Rutgers University of USA.
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中国餐饮业食物浪费的资源环境问题综述
高利伟1,2，成升魁1，曹晓昌1,2，张 丹1，刘晓洁1，秦 奇1,2，刘 尧1,2
1 中国科学院地理科学与资源研究所，北京 100101；
2 中国科学院大学，北京 100049
摘 要：近年来食物浪费以及食物浪费的资源环境问题越来越成为全球关注的焦点，尤其是在发展中国家，食物浪费成为
威胁食物安全的另一关键因素。尽管如此，在中国，人们仍然对食物浪费缺乏认识，尤其是餐饮业中消费者的食物浪费。因
此，基于国内主流媒体报道的大量餐饮业食物浪费的案例数据资料，本研究针对餐饮业中的食物浪费做了系统的阐述。针对餐
饮业食物浪费的初步估计，本研究揭示了我国餐饮业食物浪费的严重性。通过分析国际上大量食物浪费的相关文献资料，本研
究具体阐述了食物浪费的资源环境代价。最后，本研究基于生命周期评价方法提出了针对餐饮业食物浪费及其资源环境效应研
究的概念框架，以便更有效地减少食物浪费。
关键词：食物消费；食物浪费；资源环境代价；餐馆；餐饮业；中国