EU Food Loss and Waste Prevention Hub

In 2021, the eight hospitals in Denmark’s Capital Region generated 637,000 kilograms of food waste with a majority resulting from plate and buffet waste in the hospital wards. Therefore, this project has focused on how to use data-driven approaches to tackle ward-related food waste in two of the hospitals in the Capital Region, namely Herlev-Gentofte Hospital and Bispebjerg-Frederiksberg Hospital. 

At Bispebjerg-Frederiksberg Hospital, they use a buffet concept, where the food is portioned out for the patients directly at the wards. Here, the ambition was to implement a time-efficient solution that enables the hospital to measure food waste on food category level and furthermore, whether the food wasted consists of primarily buffet or plate waste. Thus, Bispebjerg-Frederiksberg Hospital collaborates with FoodOp, a small-sized enterprise (SME), that utilizes intelligent digital scales to provide the hospital with time and food category specific data on food waste in four different wards. 

At Herlev-Gentofte Hospital, they have implemented an à la carte concept, where patients order food from a digital menu on a tablet directly from their hospital bed. This system generates significant amounts of detailed data related to the patient’s ordering patterns that can be utilized to gain insights about time and ward specific food waste. Thus, Herlev-Gentofte Hospital collaborates with Anova Data, a small-sized enterprise (SME), to develop a data module that provides an overview of existing data coupled with measurements of patient plate waste on ward level. 

Consequently, these data-driven insights have supported the hospitals in preparing and facilitating strategies to prevent and reduce food waste in wards where plate waste is complex and critical.