Reducing International Catering Waste Through Innovation and Technology: A Review

Abstract

The airline industry today generates a large amount of food waste, particularly originating from deplaned waste and terminal waste. Despite the rigorous regulations governing the industry and other causal factors that contribute to this problem, key stakeholders such as airlines, catering companies and authoritative bodies are making significant efforts to reduce waste generation and introduce innovative methods of waste management. This opinion piece highlights some of the integral factors that cause high food wastage in the aviation industry, indicates the new changes in rules and regulations imposed by the aviation regulatory bodies and how recent advances in modern technology are being utilised by airlines and catering companies to tackle these causal factors and challenges. The results of this research showed that although a few key stakeholders are taking initiatives to spark changes in the industry, a significant change cannot be made until all stakeholders, particularly the governing bodies take steps to enable other stakeholders such as airlines, catering companies and passengers to take noteworthy actions conveniently without any restriction. The information gathered by reviewing and discussing existing literature will be used to propose a holistic system to reduce food wastage and enhance customer experience with the intention of bridging the existing market gap.