Quantifying Food Waste in the Hospitality Sector and Exploring Its Underlying Reasons—A Case Study of Lahore, Pakistan

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

• Abstract: This section must be improved and revised according to the journal guidelines.
• Introduction: I suggest to rewrite this section by giving proper justification of this study. Please try to cite most recent and relevant references. For mentioning references please follow journal's style.
• Methodology: Please mention/declare ethical approval number of this study in this section.
• Results: Tables and Figures must be included in the main file. Please describe your results here and delete all references from this section. Please give full stop at the end of sentence (Line 401).
• Conclusion: This section must be improved and try to rewrite this section in a single paragraph.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 1 Comments

• Point 1: Abstract: This section must be improved and revised according to journal guidelines

Response 1: We have edited this section and have restructured it according to the journal guidelines, i.e. (1) Background, (2) Methods, (3) Results, and (4) Conclusion.

• Point 2: I suggest to rewrite this section by giving proper justification of this study. Please try to cite most recent and relevant references. For mentioning references please follow journal's style.

Response 2: We have added a few more paragraphs in the introduction section to strengthen our argument and provide stronger justification for conducting this study. We have also added new references using Sustainability’s referencing style.

• Point 3: Please mention/declare ethical approval number of this study in this section

Response 3: The current study did not require ethical approval, as no experiment was performed on humans or animals.

• Point 4: Tables and Figures must be included in the main file. Please describe your results here and delete all references from this section. Please give full stop at the end of sentence (Line 401).

Response 4: We have added the tables and figures in the results section. The references that we have added in this section are needed for comparison. Given the nature of this study, we find it better to compare our results with other studies in this section instead of repeating it in the discussion section.

Secondly, we have placed a full stop at the end of that sentence.

• Point 5: This section must be improved and try to rewrite this section in a single paragraph.

Response 5: We have revised our conclusion section and expanded it into two paragraphs, given the word count.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The article deals with an interesting topic which quantifying food waste in the hospitality sector and exploring its underlying reasons. But it has a few major limitations.

(1) Novelty. What is the academic significance of quantifying food waste in the hospitality sector? Lots of similar researches exist. The authors should provide the Novelty of this study in the Introduction section.

(2) “The number of studies on food waste-related topics has increased in recent years”, thus authors should outline how the main findings are in line with previous studies. Please compare your results with more other studies, especially the three research studies (Aamir et al., 2018; Tostivint et al., 2017; Khalid et al., 2019).

(3) The language of the article needs polish.

(4) Line 82-88: “Media reports from Pakistan and findings from…. 50% reduction in food waste by 2050”. The authors should explain why calculating these indicators are important.

(5) Authors should investigate the effects of Food waste segregation and tracking on food waste in the 3.3. Food waste segregation and tracking section based on the data gained.

(6) Authors should investigate the effects of Food waste redistribution and recovery on food waste in the 3.4. Food waste redistribution and recovery based on the data gained.

(7) It is recommended discussing “2.4. Limitations and Uncertainties” in the Conclusion section.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 2 Comments

• Point 1: What is the academic significance of quantifying food waste in the hospitality sector? Lots of similar researches exist. The authors should provide the Novelty of this study in the Introduction section.

Response 1: The authors of this paper believe that this research provides much-needed empirical data on food waste in Pakistan. Please refer to our response in the introduction to find out more about the significance and novelty of this research

• Point 2: “The number of studies on food waste-related topics has increased in recent years”, thus authors should outline how the main findings are in line with previous studies. Please compare your results with other studies, especially the three research studies (Aamir et al., 2018; Tostivint et al., 2017; Khalid et al., 2019).

Response 2: The authors have provided a comprehensive comparison of our result with other studies in the results as well as a discussion section, adding further studies that we found relevant for comparison, including one in Pakistan that was recently published and that by  Aamir et al. (2018). Tostivint et al. (2017) and Khalid et al. (2019) are more difficult to include since the former measured food waste in the dairy supply chain, whereas the latter estimates the nutritional value of food waste at the household level. We feel it important to focus on drawing comparisons that more directly relate to what we did rather than to compare things that are quite different and conclude that they are different.

• Point 3: The language of the article needs polish.

Response 3: The paper has been reviewed by the two co-authors who are native English speakers and changes have made been where necessary.

• Point 4: Line 82-88: “Media reports from Pakistan and findings from…. 50% reduction in food waste by 2050”. The authors should explain why calculating these indicators are important.

Response 4: We have explained the academic significance of calculating these key performance indicators in the introduction section along with our explanation of the overall significance of this study.

• Point 5: Authors should investigate the effects of Food waste segregation and tracking on food waste in the 3. Food waste segregation and tracking sectionbased on the data gained.

Response 5: We have investigated the implications of this result in this section.

• Point 6: Authors should investigate the effects of Food waste redistribution and recovery on food waste in the 4. Food waste redistribution and recoverybased on the data gained.

Response 6: We have already discussed its effect in the discussion section when talking about formal and informal donations. Nevertheless, we have added a few more points to it.

• Point 7: It is recommended discussing “4. Limitations and Uncertainties”in the Conclusion section.

Response 7: This subsection has been removed from the methodology section and has been added at the end of the discussion section.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for addressing my comments and making necessary corrections.

Author Response

Thank you for the positive comments.

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have revised the original manuscript very carefully. 

Author Response

Thank you for the positive comments.