Food Waste Is the Real Footprint: Why Sustainability Starts With What Gets Eaten

Published: 9 February 2026  |  Read time: 7–8 minutes

Tags: Sustainability, Food waste, Life‑cycle thinking, Healthcare catering

Packaging is visible. Food waste is often hidden. Yet the climate and resource cost of food that is produced and not eaten is enormous—and in many systems it outweighs the footprint of the packaging that protected it. For food service operators, the most credible sustainability strategy is simple: design the system so more food is actually eaten.

The Problem with Traditional Airline Meal Presentation

  • Food loss and waste is widely estimated to account for roughly 8–10% of global greenhouse‑gas emissions—making waste prevention a first‑order climate lever.
  • Life‑cycle research shows that the environmental benefit of preventing food waste is often much larger than the impact of packaging changes.
  • Torus Pak’s tray‑to‑plate method is designed to reduce waste without sacrificing the psychology of plated presentation that drives appetite and satisfaction.

Why food waste matters more than most sustainability debates admit

Most sustainability conversations about ready meals begin with packaging. That’s understandable: the packaging is what you throw away, so it feels like the problem.

But climate impact is largely embedded upstream. Every uneaten meal carries the footprint of farming, processing, refrigeration, transport, and cooking—only to end up as waste.

That’s why international bodies and research groups consistently point to food loss and waste as a major climate and resource issue, with estimates commonly placing it around 8–10% of annual global greenhouse‑gas emissions.

The packaging paradox: sometimes “more packaging” means less impact

FA widely cited conclusion from life‑cycle thinking is counter‑intuitive: improving packaging can reduce total environmental impact if it prevents food from being wasted.

The 2017 denkstatt work on packaging and food waste prevention states that optimized packaging often provides environmental advantages because the benefits of prevented food waste are usually much higher than the environmental impacts of producing or optimizing the packaging involved.

The practical implication: packaging should be judged by functional outcomes (waste prevented, quality preserved, portions controlled), not just by grams of material.

Where Torus Pak fits: engineering a system where people finish their meals

In an Entrepreneur UK feature, Torus Pak’s founder Rickard Gillblad argues that food waste can be several times more harmful to the environment than plastic waste—and that the “real impact” comes from portion control, centralized cooking, and ensuring that food is eaten rather than thrown away.

This is the logic behind Torus Pak’s tray‑to‑plate method: you can run an efficient, portion‑controlled, cold‑chain model (including frozen meals), but still serve the dish on a plate—because plated presentation changes perception, appetite, and satisfaction.

Why presentation is not “cosmetic” in healthcare and premium catering

OPresentation is a behavioural lever. The same meal can be judged as “institutional” when eaten from a container, and “gourmet” when revealed on a plate. Entrepreneur UK notes this psychological effect explicitly in the Torus Pak story.

IBTimes describes a Heidelberg example where a shift to portion‑packed frozen meals reduced food going into the system (a proxy for reduced waste), but patient satisfaction dropped when meals had to be eaten directly from trays. The operational win created an experience problem.

Tray‑to‑plate presentation is designed to close that gap: retain the logistics benefits of centralized cooking and portion control while restoring the plated moment that signals care.

Material choice: why polypropylene is often selected in food‑service packaging

Material still matters. Torus Pak’s tray specification lists a polypropylene‑based tray body (copolymer PP).

In a comparative LCA‑based ranking of polymers led by University of Pittsburgh researchers (Tabone et al., Environmental Science & Technology), polyolefins—specifically PP, LDPE and HDPE—ranked at the top of the life‑cycle assessment results, while more complex polymers ranked lower. Chemical & Engineering News summarized the same finding, noting polypropylene and high‑density polyethylene at the top of the list.

This doesn’t mean “plastic is good.” It means decisions should be evidence‑based and functional: choose materials that perform, that can be handled safely in food systems, and that fit existing recycling streams where available.

What “good” looks like: measure waste, not just packaging

If you want a sustainability story that stands up to procurement and scrutiny, measure outcomes. A practical measurement set for ready‑meal systems usually includes:

  • Plate waste (what comes back uneaten).
  • Production waste (prep and over‑production).
  • Stock and spoilage loss (expired or damaged meals).
  • Portion accuracy (variance by dish and shift).
  • Satisfaction and intake (especially in healthcare).
  • Packaging material and end‑of‑life route (by geography).

A case example from a Torus Pak pilot reported by Nemco noted a 65% reduction in food waste and a 10% increase in dietary energy delivered at Copenhagen University Hospital Rigshospitalet after switching to straight‑to‑plate service. Results vary by site, but it illustrates the right metric: what gets eaten.

The marketing takeaway: sustainability you can explain in one sentence

Consumers and procurement teams are increasingly sceptical of vague sustainability claims. The strongest positioning is the simplest: “We reduced food waste.”

When an operator can show that more meals are eaten—and fewer are thrown away—the sustainability narrative becomes tangible. Packaging becomes a means to a measurable end.

Next step

If you want to build a credible sustainability case, start with a pilot that measures waste and intake—not just packaging weight. Torus Pak can support a menu‑matched trial to validate plating quality, regeneration behaviour, and waste outcomes in your environment.

Contact

Sources and further reading

  1. UNFCCC — “Food loss and waste account for 8–10% of annual global greenhouse gas emissions” (news post): https://unfccc.int/news/food-loss-and-waste-account-for-8-10-of-annual-global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-cost-usd-1-trillion
  2. UNEP — Food Waste Index Report 2021 (resource page): https://www.unep.org/resources/report/unep-food-waste-index-report-2021
  3. FAO — Food wastage footprint: Impacts on natural resources (2013, PDF): https://www.fao.org/4/i3347e/i3347e.pdf
  4. denkstatt — How Packaging Contributes to Food Waste Prevention (V2.0 slide deck, 2017): https://static.cdn.packhelp.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/13101028/How_Packaging_Contributes_to_Food_Waste_Prevention_V2.0-3.pdf
  5. Entrepreneur UK — “Rethinking Sustainability: The Real Environmental Cost of Food Waste and What Torus Pak Is Doing About It” (Aug 4, 2025): https://uk.entrepreneur.com/technology/rethinking-sustainability-the-real-environmental-cost-of/495410
  6. International Business Times — “Beyond Packaging: How Torus Pak Is Transforming the Value Chain, From Hospitals to High Altitude” (July 23, 2025): https://www.ibtimes.com/beyond-packaging-how-torus-pak-transforming-value-chain-hospitals-high-altitude-3779246
  7. Sustainability Times — “We need plastics. What we don’t need is plastic waste” (Apr 26, 2019): https://www.sustainability-times.com/markets/we-need-plastics-what-we-dont-need-is-plastic-waste/
  8. Tabone et al. (University of Pittsburgh-led) — Sustainability Metrics: LCA and green design in polymers (PDF copy): https://venturewell.org/wp-content/uploads/Tabone-2010-Sustainability-Metrics-LCA-and-Green-Design-in-Polymers-green-plastics.pdf
  9. Chemical & Engineering News — “Polymer Sustainability Metrics Compared” (Oct 4, 2010): https://pubsapp.acs.org/cen/science/88/8840scic2.html
  10. Torus Pak — Tray product data sheet (Universal tray, 2020): https://toruspak.com/inhalte/uploads/5101_Tray-Product-Data-Sheet_2020.pdf

Nemco — “Torus Pak trays test reduces hospital food waste by 65%” (case report): https://nemco.co.nz/torus-pak-trays-test-reduces-hospital-food-waste-by-65/