Tourism-related food waste: what opportunities and challenges?

Food waste is seen as a societal, economic, and environmental challenge threatening food security and causing natural resources overconsumption and nutrition losses. There is inequality in the distribution of food resources in the world and many countries have been suffering from hunger where others have excess food thrown away with waste. Indeed, the Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that we entered 2022 with 828 million hungry people whose majority are women and children suffering from malnutrition, wasting, and stunting. Moreover, the UNEP Food Waste Index 2021 indicated that nearly 931 million tonnes of food waste were produced in 2019 of which 61% originated from households, 26% from restaurants and food service, and 13% from retail. This, of course, hinders the achievement of the zero hunger goal by 2030. In this order, we analyze the main challenges and opportunities for using food waste released from touristic activities using an S-(Strength)-W (Weakness) O- (Opportunities) and T-(threats) analysis. The analysis shows that the challenges could be a source of creation of important opportunities while it is recommended to enhance the awareness of restaurants and business foods owner’s about the impacts of the food waste increase on the economy and environment and the importance of waste selection and circular bio-economy concept adoption for the sustainable development of their businesses.