The purpose of this study was to investigate the efforts to reduce food waste in local primary schools in two municipalities in northern Sweden, as well as to highlight any similarities and differences. Food waste is a major problem around the world, globally an estimated 1.3 billion tonnes of food are thrown away each year. With a growing population and the environmental impact that is already provides significant consequences, it is not healthy that food that could be eaten are thrown away. Sweden alone are throwing away 1.2 million tonnes of food each year, and school kitchen alone contributes with approximately 40 000 tonnes. To answer the purpose of this study, electronic questionnaires were sent out to the principals for a total of 78 schools. The result of this study shows that 67 % of the schools participating in this study, has received directives from the municipality on how to work to reduce food waste in primary school. But even those who have not received directives from the municipality still perform activities when 12 out of thirteen schools in municipality A and all eight schools in municipality B stated that they actively working to reduce food waste. Even though the measures taken within schools were to some extent similar, the directives from the municipalities differed between schools, also within the same municipality. As consequence, participating schools worked differently with their students on this topic.

Bakgrund: Ett behov att finna strategier för att minska matsvinnets negativa miljöpåverkan har identifierats inom svensk offentlig sektor. De dagliga tallriksavskrapen inom kommunala skolkök kostar samhället miljonbelopp, dessutom uppstår ytterligare matslöseri vid tillagning. Vinster antas kunna göras genom ett förbättrat resursutnyttjande inom skolköken. Med anledning att styrningsverktyget lean tidigare tillämpats inom ett antal olika kontexter, dock med ett varierande resultat, är det av intresse att studera om lean är möjligt samt meningsfullt att implementera i kommunala skolkök i syfte att reducera matsvinn. Syfte: Studiens syfte är att bidra till ökad förståelse av vilka faktorer som påverkar uppkomst av matsvinn i de kommunala skolköken och således utreda möjligheten till en effektivare resursanvändning genom tillämpning av styrningsverktyget lean. Metod: Studien vilar på ett hermeneutiskt perspektiv och har en abduktiv ansats. För datainsamling har en kvalitativ flerfallsstudie genomförts på tre olika skolor inom olika kommuner. Nio semistrukturerade intervjuer har kompletterats med observationer samt dokumentstudier, i syfte att uppnå en helhetsförståelse för kontexten. Slutsats: Studien visar att styrningsverktyget lean har potential att reducera matsvinn. Det har dock framkommit att den strategiska nivån av lean inte är enkelt tillämpbar i skolkök. Faktorer som tidsbrist, diffust kundbegrepp samt lagar och regleringar har identifierats begränsa dess applicerbarhet. Avseende den operationella nivån av lean har potential att reducera matsvinn genom implementering av utvalda leanverktyg identifierats, trots bristande tillämplighet av den strategiska nivån. / Background: A need to find strategies to reduce the negative environmental impact from food waste has been identified within the Swedish public sector. The daily plate waste in municipal school kitchen cost society millions and additional food waste occur during cooking. Profits are expected to be made through improved resource utilization within school kitchens. Due to the fact that the management tool lean previously has been applied in a number of different contexts, though with various results, it is interesting to study whether lean is possible and meaningful to implement in municipal school kitchens in order to reduce food waste. Purpose: The study aims to contribute to the understanding of factors affecting the generation of food waste in municipal school kitchens and therefore investigate the possibility of a more efficient use of resources by implementation of the management tool lean. Research Method: The study rest on a hermeneutic perspective and have an abductive approach. For data collection, a qualitative multiple case study on three different schools in different municipalities has been conducted. Nine semi-structured interviews have been supplemented with observations and document studies, in order to achieve a holistic understanding for the context. Conclusion: The study concludes that lean as a management tool has potential to reduce food waste. However, it has been found that the strategic level of lean can not easily be implemented in school kitchens. Factors like time constraints, a diffuse customer definition and laws and regulations primarily limit the strategic levels applicability. Regarding lean on an operational level, potential to reduce food waste by implementation of selected lean tools has been identified, despite the lack of applicability of the strategic level.