How sustainable is your menu?

Abstract

Rising sustainability concerns in the food industry have driven the need for innovative approaches in culinary operations. Redesigning the menus and recipes from a sustainability perspective is a promising approach to reducing restaurants' environmental impact. Chefs, as crucial decision-makers in menu and recipe planning practices, play a vital role in promoting sustainable food services. However, the literature lacks insights into chefs' sustainable recipe planning practices and how information and communication technologies (ICTs) could support these practices. This paper addresses this gap by conducting individual interview sessions (n=10) and recipe generation workshops (n=10) with 20 chefs in total. It reveals four dimensions of sustainable recipes (locality, seasonality, frugality, and food quality) based on semi-structured interviews. It presents a novel interactive recipe planning concept called KNOBIE, which was designed to support chefs' sustainable recipe planning practices by using insights that gathered from the interviews. Lastly, based on an assessment of this concept through online recipe generation sessions with chefs, it provides five design implications for integrating ICTs into the sustainable menu and recipe planning practices to promote sustainable food services in restaurants.