Spatiotemporal variability in urban HORECA food consumption and its ecological footprint in China

Increasing hotel/restaurant/café (HORECA) food consumption (HFC) has become one of the most prominent features of food consumption transformation under the background of rapid urbanization in China. Combining direct-weighing data (using 11,883 dishes in 164 restaurants) and literature data, this study, for the first time, quantitatively calculated the amount of HFC and its ecological footprint (EF) in China in 2002 and 2015 to depict the environmental effects of this transformation. The results indicated that per capita HFC tripled from 320 g/cap/meal in 2002 to 852 g/cap/meal in 2015, representing an average annual growth rate of 13%. In addition, by scaling up the HFC in 31 provinces/municipalities/autonomous regions to the national scale, HFC in China increased by 12,612 tons from 2002 to 2015. Finally, the total EF in the HORECA sector increased nearly 33 times (or 44,440 global ha), from 1348 global ha in 2002 to 45,788 global ha in 2015. The EF of Guangdong increased the most, surpassing 4000 global ha in 2015. These findings provide a scientific basis to support improved food resource spatial allocation and mitigation of regional resource pressure to achieve sustainable consumption under the current background of rapid urbanization in China.