Evaluating materiality in food waste reduction interventions

Abstract

This paper assesses how interventions utilising material apparatus can drive food waste reduction in professional kitchens. Using non-participant observation and interviews, this study evaluated work-based experiments to cut waste in luxury hotels. The paper focuses on the impacts of one specific intervention: the introduction of small, transparent food waste bins, positioned at each food preparation station. The findings examine how the material properties of these apparatus, including size, calibration and transparency, coupled with their location, shaped chefs' food waste related practices. Moreover, the findings show how chefs' organisational and occupational norms interact with the influence exerted by utensils to create new meanings and assign value to food, waste and the craft skills used to reduce it.

Keywords

• Chefs
• Food waste
• Kitchen
• Materiality
• Social practices
• Sociomateriality