Necessary Steps
Teachers:
- Explain to students that they can be part of the solution to the food waste problem through changing their eating habits in schools and at home.
- Remind students not to take more than they can eat.
- Integrate food into your teaching subject, e.g. biology, geography, math, social studies, cooking classes, gardening, etc.
- Organise hands-on activities to introduce the school kitchen staff and their work, e.g. cooking together.
- Invite guest speakers (e.g., chefs or food bank organisers) to talk about food.
- Suggest food waste-related topics for research projects and other assignments.
- Explain the meaning and difference between “use by” and “best before” dates.
- Lead by example: don’t waste your own food!
- Collect opinions from students to give the kitchen and caterers feedback on how to make school food better and improve the dining experience.
School managers:
- Form an action group with the participation of all stakeholders and set goals for food waste reduction.
- Involve students to find out what makes food attractive and tasteful.
- Create a system for pre-ordering food and reporting how many students are present.
- Plan lunch breaks at the appropriate time and length.
- Initiate campaigns, competitions, and other hands-on activities to raise awareness at the whole-school level (see Campaigning and cooking for awareness raising).
- Include food waste into the procurement criteria of catering services (see further Procurement criteria to reduce food waste).
More Issues To Consider
To have a bigger effect on reducing food waste, the schools must take an integrated approach, i.e. collaborate with school caterers and cooks (see School catering tackling food waste).
