Food and Sustainability: an analysis of perception of environmental sustainability in buffet restaurants

Abstract

This paper addressed the issue of sustainability in the gastronomic sector with the objective to analyze the perception of managers regarding the buffet restaurants 'best practices' of environmental sustainability. Gastronomy in this matter involves issues such as agriculture, and transportation providers, saving natural resources and use of clean technologies, to correct handling, portioning and food production procedures and the correct management of waste produced. The application of a questionnaire to managers of eighteen restaurants of the type referred at the neighborhoods of Lagoa da Conceição and Rio Tavares in Florianópolis, showed that 72% considered the restaurant causes some kind of environmental impact, while 28% considered not impacting the environment negatively, but even among those considered not causing impacts, some action is performed in order to minimize adverse effects, resulting in 94% of responses. The significance of this development work was made towards the identification of sustainable actions through literature and the subsequent analysis of the managers perception survey, and draw attention to the importance of performing such actions.