Objective   To examine the prevalence and influence factors of school lunch food waste among primary and middle school students in Zhejiang province, China.

  Methods  Totally 20 986 rural/urban students were recruited with stratified random cluster sampling at 93 primary and middle schools in 11 cities across Zhejiang province. An onsite self-administered survey was conducted among the students using a self-designed questionnaire in 2021. Multivariate logistic regression was used to analyze impact factors of food waste.

  Results  Among all the students, 12 368 (58.93%) reported plate waste at school lunch. Of the primary school students, 5 880 (56.49%) reported plate waste at the frequency of 1 – 3 times per month and proportion of the students reporting staple and non-staple plate waste were 71.67% and 45.65%; of the middle school students, 6 448 (61.34%) reported plate waste, with 63.67% of the students reporting staple plate waste at frequency of 1 – 3 times per month and 49.35% reporting non-staple plate waste at frequency of 1 – 4 times per week, respectively. Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that the being girl, aged < 15 years, with specific taste preference (light, salty, oily food), usually having a distributed meal serving at school lunch, and frequent consumption of snack were significant promoting factors of plate waste (P < 0.001 for all).

  Conclusion  The prevalence of school lunch food waste was relatively high among primary and middle school students, especially in the girls under 15 years of age or being underweight, in Zhejiang province, suggesting that the situation needs to intervened comprehensively.