Open Access

Lebensmittelabfälle sind entlang der gesamten Wertschöpfungskette aus ethischer, ökologischer, sozialer und ökonomischer Perspektive problematisch und widersprechen dem Nachhaltigkeitsgedanken, wie er 1987 von der Brundtland-Kommission (WCED 1987) formuliert wurde. Besonders vor dem Hintergrund einer wachsenden Weltbevölkerung, knapper Ressourcen und einer steigenden Anzahl an Hunger leidenden Menschen ist die Verschwendung von Lebensmitteln nicht vertretbar.

Sustainability is a central issue in food business and food retailing since approximately 3 years (See Teitscheid 2011). Various influential factors are significant for this development. On the one hand consumers choices are changing (See GFK et al. 2009). They are looking for natural, good and healthy food; they have a longing for home and an intact world (See iSuN 2010). The image of a highly efficient, but often ruthless industrial food production in regards to mankind and nature is not appropriate here. On the other hand, raw materials are scarce and, thus, very valuable. Bad harvests, mostly interpreted as a result of climate change, worldwide increasing consumption and the production of food in favor of energy production instead of nutritional aims, lead to a re-evaluation of agricultural resources and their producers. Within this context, food industry is searching for new forms of cooperation and partnership along the value chain in order to secure their resource basis. In the light of their significant environmental impact, an increasing number of companies also start to work on the environmental assessment and optimization of their products and value chains. Therefore they need employees with valid knowledge and competencies in sustainability and resources management. Based on this demand, the master's program "Sustainable Services and Nutrition Management" started in 2009 in the University of Applied Sciences in Münster (Germany)1. This text reports about how the topic of resource efficiency in food/nutrition industry has been integrated within the study program, which projects have been worked on and what experience could be gained from them.