Improving the supply chain and food quality of professionally prepared meals

An increasing share of the daily meals served in Europe is prepared out-of-home by professionals in foodservice. The quality of such meals is highly debated. This paper presents and discusses obstacles to improving quality in a cost-effective way and suggests solutions: 1) Modularisation of the meal production in order to transfer labour-intensive operations from the kitchens to the industry; 2) Systemic use of a new concept: thawing during distribution, which improves shelf-life and reduces waste; 3) Supply chain modelling to improve delivery schedules and reduce environmental impact. Existing food legislation complies with the suggested approaches. ► We propose to distribute frozen meal components for foodservice in the chill chain. ► This new distribution principle results in a stable sub-zero product temperature. ► A prolonged shelf-life is indicated in theory and from experiments. ► The distribution principle is environmentally friendly due to reduced waste. ► The distribution principle complies with existing legislation on chilled foods.