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Review
. 2023 Jan 15;12(2):409.
doi: 10.3390/foods12020409.

'Nutritional Footprint' in the Food, Meals and HoReCa Sectors: A Review

Inmaculada Zarzo  1   2 , Carla Soler  1   3 , Maria-Angeles Fernandez-Zamudio  4 , Tatiana Pina  5 , Héctor Barco  6 , Jose M Soriano  1   3
Affiliations
Review

'Nutritional Footprint' in the Food, Meals and HoReCa Sectors: A Review

Inmaculada Zarzo et al. Foods. .

Abstract

Nowadays, the food industry is integrating environmental, social, and health parameters to increase its sustainable impact. To do this, they are using new tools to calculate the potential efficiency of nutritional products with lower levels of environmental impact. One of these tools is called the 'nutritional footprint', created by Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy GmbH. This study aims to review this concept and clarify its historical development, its use in several sectors of the food industry, and its transformation from a manual to an online tool. Results reflected that it is a suitable indicator that integrates nutritional, environmental, and social-economic dimensions to help the decision-making process in the procurement of more sustainable products and, although it is limited to Germany due to the use of the national standard nutritional intakes of Germany, its importance lies in the fact that is a promising instrument to promote environmental sustainability in the context of food, meals, and the hotel, restaurant and catering (HoReCa) sectors.

Keywords: HoReCa sectors; food; meals; menus; nutritional footprint; nutritional tool; sustainability.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flow diagram, according to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) [23], used in this study. * Exclusion criteria are reflected in the ‘review method’ section.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Differences between NAHGAST Meal-Basic (A) and NAHGAST Meal-Pro (B).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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