Food waste management in the kitchens of educational institutions in Ghana. A case study of senior high schools in the Bolgatanga municipality

Abstract

Food waste has always been an issue in kitchens of all sizes. It is, however, seen a lot more in commercial kitchens where there are high volumes of food waste generated. The generation of food waste in the kitchen causes a significant financial loss for the educational institutions and also contributes to natural resource depletion, Green House Gas (GHG) emissions during final disposal in landfills. The study aimed at assessing food waste management in the kitchens of Senior High Schools (SHS) in the Bolgatanga Municipality. The research design adopted for the study was survey. The population of the study included 64 kitchen staff identified at the four (4) boarding senior high schools in the Bolgatanga Municipality. Fifty-six kitchen staff were sampled using simple random sampling technique. Questionnaire was used for collecting the necessary information. The data gathered were processed using the statistical software packages, SPSS version 23.0. The finding indicated that leftovers foods, discarded food items, and purchasing ingredients more than needed are the type of waste generated. The finding showed that the kitchens does not have control over purchasing of food items, and have poor practice towards proper preparation of food to avoid waste generation. The study found that the kitchens had poor practices towards management of food wasted generated. The result showed that developing a food waste management policy ensures better planning of purchases by 78%, and better knowledge on how to use leftovers by 69.3%. The study concluded that proper strategies can reduce food waste generations towards sustainable food waste management. It was recommended that the school authorities should establish internal audit team and audit food waste generation by measuring the present food waste levels and identify the key sources of food waste generation.