Experimenting Approaches to Food Waste Reduction and Monitoring in Universities

Food waste represents a critical challenge in the transition towards sustainable and equitable food systems. Beyond prevention, complementary actions are needed, and universities can play a key role by implementing food waste reduction strategies, including surplus food redistribution. Aligned with POLIMI’s Strategic Plan, the School of Manage- ment designed and tested a surplus food management strategy within its catering services, coupled with the development of a monitoring system to quantify recovered surplus food. The experimentation was implemented between July and December 2025, focusing on lunch services. Results show that surplus redistribution is effective and that the monitoring system enables systematic data collection on user participation, surplus quantities and types, and redistribution processes. Despite some limitations, the resulting dataset provides a valuable pilot for developing standardized monitoring frameworks to support university food waste reduction initiatives.