A decision model to select serviceware for school foodservice

This research had two purposes: 1) to compare consumption and cost of the resources used for permanent and disposable serviceware, and 2) to develop a decision model for predicting the cost of a serviceware system based on the per-meal costs of resources. Serviceware resources were measured in a middle school in a Midwestern city. Cost for labor, serviceware, chemicals electricity, water solid waste removal, and quantity of electricity and water were determined for both types of serviceware. Sack lunch waste also was measured. Disposable serviceware used significantly less (p< or = 0.05) water, electricity, chemicals, and labor than permanent serviceware but generated a significantly greater (p < or = 0.05) volume of solid waste. Labor and serviceware were the two largest cost components of permanent and disposable serviceware, respectively. Actual total cost/meal was $0.081 for both serviceware systems. A decision model was developed from the daily resources used with each type of serviceware. The resources were divided by the number of resources consumed per meal. Mean values for each resource were obtained from multivariate estimation techniques. The mean values were multiplied by the unit cost of the resource to predict the per-meal resource cost for each serviceware system. Total predicted cost per meal was $0.088 and $0.081 for the permanent and disposable serviceware systems respectively. The paired sample t-test from the resource comparison and 95 percent confidence intervals from the decision model indicated that no significant difference (p > or = 0.05) in cost existed between permanent and disposable serviceware for this school's conditions. Each district has a unique set of environmental and economic conditions that will influence serviceware selection.