Determining and Addressing Food Plate Waste in a Group of Students at the University of Jordan

Abstract

More than half of the food produced is wasted, lost, or discarded due to inefficiency in the human managed food chain; substantial amounts of food waste is avoidable if it had been better managed. To determine the proportions of Food Plate Wasted (FPW) by a group of students who dine at the Students’ Restaurant at the University of Jordan (SRUJ). A random sample of 600 students was recruited from different faculties of the University of Jordan (UJ). A reliable and valid questionnaire was developed. The amounts of Food Plate Waste (FPW) were inspected and the proportions of FPW were calculated. Regardless of gender, of the 323.0 kg purchased food items, only 42.11 kg was wasted FPW was exceptionally limited; the proportion of students who wasted the whole amounts of all purchased food items was only 0.37%. Only 1.8% of females and 0.5% of males wasted their purchased meat (p = 0.001), whereas 0.3% of males and none of the females wasted their purchased rice (p = 0.577). The proportion of females who wasted half of their meat was significantly higher than that in males (8.6% and 2.6%, p = 0.001; respectively). About 60% of male and 47% of female students showed that food price was the main factor that influenced their decision to dine at the SRUJ (p = 0.002). The majority of students indicated that lunch was their main meal; about one third of them dine customarily at the SRUJ. Proportions of the amounts of FPW by the participants are substantially low. It seems that simple cost of food and low-income of students are decisive in constraining the amounts of FPW at the UJ.