Optimizing Food Wastage in Budhanilkantha

School – 2023 Report

Madhav Khanal
Pratyush Bhattarai

April 24, 2023

1. Introduction
Research on waste management was conducted at Budhanilkantha School of Kathmandu.It'a a
residential school with over 1000 students from grades 5-12. The dining hall of the school is large
and can accommodate up to 300 400 students at a time. Due to the bulk cooking of food for
thousands of students and staff, the problem of food waste has been serious. On top of that, almost
all students are below the age of 18 and hence the problem of food management has been even
more difficult due to the careless nature of children in the hostel. All the students are provided with
a meal 5 times a day. Hence, on average, there are 1000 people taking 5 meals every day i.e 5000
servings of food in a day. Just even a small fraction of wastage from each student causes quintals
of food losses every day. In this paper, we discuss optimal strategies for food waste management
devised on the basis of an in-person questionnaires, and factual data from the Budhanilkantha
School Administration and the kitchen department. Our goal is to find practical ways in which
waste management could be minimized at bnks.

2. Objectives
• To find the exact data related to food and its wastage in Budhanilkantha school
• To analyze food wastage and devise practical strategies for its management
• To propose a practical model. which is composed of many factors, that could be effective in
minimizing food waste as small changes in different areas lead to a drastic change overall

3. Research Methodology
3.1 Observation: We had a first-person experience of observing the food and its
management at the school dining
3.2 Interviews: We took a sample of 30 students and tracked their food consumption and
wastage, before our model,and after our model was implemented
3.3 Secondary Data: We took secondary data from the school brochure and the data
sheet of the kitchen administration. We also looked into the existing research.
3.4 Field Work: We let students cultivate food in 30 acres of land, called BNKS
Knowledge Park to engage them in food production to make them aware about the effort
behind producing food.
 4. Research Limitations:
i) This research was conducted on a small sample and might be slightly biased
ii) The validity and applicability of our model were determined solely on a single t-
test.

5. Model Development
5.1 Variable Definition:
• 𝑊: 𝑊𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑒 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑑𝑢𝑐𝑒𝑑 𝑒𝑎𝑐ℎ 𝑑𝑎𝑦 𝑖𝑛 𝑘𝑔
• 𝑡: 𝑠𝑖𝑧𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝑖𝑛𝑐ℎ𝑒𝑠
• 𝐹: 𝑅𝑎𝑤 𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑎𝑙 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑓𝑜𝑜𝑑 𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑏𝑦 𝑠𝑐ℎ𝑜𝑜𝑙 𝑐𝑎𝑓𝑒𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑎 𝑖𝑛 𝑘𝑔
• 𝐶: 𝐴𝑚𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑓𝑜𝑜𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑖𝑠 𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑏𝑙𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑘𝑔
• 𝑃: 𝑁𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑃𝑜𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑣𝑒𝑑
• 𝐷: 𝐹𝑜𝑜𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑖𝑠 𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑏𝑙𝑒 𝑜𝑟 𝑖𝑠 𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑐𝑎𝑟𝑑𝑒𝑑
• 𝑝: 𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑠𝑖𝑧𝑒
• 𝑆: 𝑆𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑠𝑓𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑓 𝑠𝑡𝑢𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑜𝑛 𝑎 𝑠𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑒 0 𝑡𝑜 10
Then,
𝐹 = 𝐶+𝐷
And,
𝑃 = 𝐸/𝑝
So,
𝑾 =𝑭−𝑷∗𝒑
And,
𝑾
% 𝑭𝒐𝒐𝒅 𝒘𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒆 = ∗ 𝟏𝟎𝟎%
𝑭

6. Factors affecting food wastage

• Student Satisfaction
• Cosmetic Perfection
• Timing of food in day
• Plate Sizing
• Self-awareness
7. Suggested Improvements to reduce food wastage

7.1 Alternate serving:

One particular factor that can significantly lower food wastage is Alternate serving.
Suppose students are categorized into two groups: Group A (grades 5 – 8) and
Group B (grades 9 – 12).

What can now be done is, food can be served in alternate way, for example, in the
morning, Group A is given breakfast first, then once they finish, Group B is given
breakfast. In the afternoon, Group A is given lunch first then once they finish,
Group B is given lunch. So, following the ABAB… serving pattern is alternate
serving.
The primary benefit of this model is that the food that is cooked and left over from
Group A can be re heated and shortly be given to Group B to reduce food wasted.

7.2 Plate sizing

Studies have shown that when given larger plates, people tend to serve themselves
larger portions, and hence lead to food wastages. Therefore, keeping a lower plate
size would result in students taking lower portions and consequently lead them to
throw less food. Of course, if the food for the student isn’t enough, they can always
take another serving.

Assumption: Food waste increases with increase in diameter with plate size, but
reaches a maximum upper value.
Justification: A study published in the International Journal of Obesity(1) found
that reducing plate size by just 3 cm (around 1.2 inches) results in a reduction of
food intake of around 16%, which would corelate to reduction in food wastage.

Consider the following,

Let waste produced in quintals per day be W and Plate diameter be t

Experiementlly we deduced that
𝑑𝑊 𝑊
=kW(1- 𝑀 ) where k is the initial rate of change of W wrt t and M is the
𝑑𝑡
carrying capacity of W.

Solving the above differential equation,we deduce that,

3
W=1+1000𝑒 −𝑡,We derived the constant by taking W very close to 0 when d was
very close to 0
Graphing the expression gives the logistic curve below:

We see an
exponential growth in Waste produced per day till the plate size reaches around
10 inch and the Waste again becomes constant. Here,initially,the waste produced
increased with increased plate size as people tend to waste more when they take
more food on plate,but after a certain threshold,the plate size has no impact .
 8. Improved storage facilities
Though factors like temperatures are controlled in school cafeteria usually through the use
of refrigerator, unmonitored humidity levels and improper sealing of food leads to food
wastage. The Natural Resources Defence Council (NRDC)(2) reported that up to 25% of
food waste in restaurants and commercial kitchens is due to the improper storage facilities.

9. Improved Food offering system.

Primarily, there are two types of catering offerings in schools usually.
1) System A: Advanced payment and unlimited food
The student here pays a certain amount 𝑅𝑠. 𝑋 per month to get unlimited
access to food every day.

Pros:
• Easier to estimate how many students will have the food
• Any number of servings can be taken by students
Cons:
• Students don’t have flexibility to chose over meals

2) System B: Coupon system, limited food

The student here pays a certain amount of money 𝑅𝑠. 𝑌 per day to purchase
coupons to buy food.

Pros:
• The cafeteria knows an estimate of how much food people will eat
Cons:
• Young students, who’re not able to decide themselves on how much
food needs to be taken, may not get sufficient nutrition

We propose a hybrid system incorporating both the systems. For students from grade 4 to 8, they
must subscribe to the first system to ensure they get the needed nutrients. For students above grade
9, the students can subscribe to either meal plan depending on the choice.
Conclusion:
We then conveyed a surved of 30 students before changing any variables and after decreasing the plate size
by 2 inches, and implementing the alternate food serving methodology.

What we also did was made the students self aware of the environmental impacts of wasting food. We also
let them have an opportunity to plant vegetables like pepinomelon, tomato, cauliflower in BNKS learning
park to engage them in food production.

The following result was observed.

Furthermore, from the same sample a data of how much food wastage is done per students is collected
and the following result is obtained:
1 200
2 210
3 215
4 0
5 0
6 300
7 400
8 250
9 150
10 215
11 185
12 220
13 180
14 200
15 200
16 200
17 230
18 0
19 0
20 0
21 400
22 400
23 200
24 100
25 500
26 200
27 200
28 300
29 400
30 300
Note: Using our proposed model,an effective plan was carried out for the next few days in the school and
the same 30 students as before were taken as sample. Their responses are recorded below:
The wastage has reduced to a mean of 135.5. We carry out a hypothesis testing(paired t-test) to show
whether out mode was effective in reducing the waste.
H0: Our model is not efficient(There is no difference in mean wastage before and after the model)

H1:Our model is efficient

We have our following table:
Student Food Food
no wastage wastage
before after out
our model(in
model g)
1 200 150
2 210 120
3 215 160
4 0 120
5 0 170
6 300 120
7 400 170
8 250 150
9 150 0
10 215 0
11 185 200
12 220 150
13 180 160
14 200 155
15 200 175
16 200 140
17 230 130
18 0 132
19 0 120
20 0 170
21 400 150
22 400 150
23 200 150
24 100 0
25 500 200
26 200 150
27 200 160
28 300 140
29 400 130
30 300 150
 We calculate the paired differences and do a two tailed paired hypothesis testing on alpha=5%
significance level.

Paired Samples Statistics

Mean N Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean
Pair 1 Food Wasted Before Our
211.83 30 130.420 23.811
Model(in g)
Food Wastage After Our
135.73 30 50.333 9.189
Model(in g)

Paired Samples Test

Paired Differences
95% Confidence Interval of the Difference
Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean Lower Upper t
Pair 1 Food Wasted Before Our Model(in
g) - Food Wastage After Our 76.100 128.963 23.545 27.944 124.256 3.232
Model(in g)

The lower and upper interval for 95% confidence interval of difference is (27.94,124.256).Since
27.944>0 or t-value of 3.232>t-value of test statistic,we conclude that our null hypothesis is rejected.We
have enough evidence on 5% significance level that out alternative hypothesis is true.
Likweise, we looked at the food wastage and satisfaction level of students, which gave us the following
result, of negative corelation.

Food Wastage/Satisfaction level

600

500

400

300 Food Wastage/Satisfaction

level
200

100

0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12

Hence, there is enough evidence to suggest that our suggested improvements have been effective in
reducing food wastage. It seems that, letting the students have an opportunity to produce their own food
in BNKS knowledge park as an optimal strategy to drastically reduce food wastage by making them
proud and self-aware of the work that goes behind food production.
Citations
(1) Hanks, A. S., Just, D. R., & Wansink, B. (2013). Smaller plates can make you serve and eat
less: but they don't work for everyone. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 19(4),
320-332. doi: 10.1037/a0033783
(2) Citation: Heller, M. C., Keoleian, G. A., Willett, W. C., & Green, R. (2015). Toward a life
cycle-based, diet-level framework for food environmental impact and nutritional quality
assessment: A critical review. Environmental Science & Technology, 49(12), 7,103–7,113.
doi:10.1021/acs.est.5b03641