The national standard, GB/Z 42510-2023, Specification for credit rating evaluation of hotel industry, was released by State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) and Standardization Administration of China (SAC) to guide related business entities to pursue integrity management and expand high-quality supply of catering services. The standard, managed by SAC/TC 214 on food services, is jointly drafted by China Hotel Association, Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation and other organizations.

The national standard establishes a credit rating evaluation indicator system with five key elements including comprehensive quality, financial status, management level, enterprise competition and social credit, which is composed of 23 secondary indicators and 48 specific indicators. It subdivides the credit rating of the hotel industry into three classes and nine grades.

Especially, the standard proposes that hotel enterprises should set up and put in place the system for saving resources, and reduce the use of disposable plastic products and food waste. It also emphasizes that enterprises should provide employees with training in curbing waste, garbage classification and other aspects every year, and establish a long-term mechanism for reducing waste to fulfill social responsibilities and realize the green transformation of the industry.

SAMR highly values and pushes forward relevant standardization work. In 2021, SAMR, together with Ministry of Commerce and Ministry of Culture and Tourism, released the guideline for promoting food conservation and cutting down on food waste. In recent years, SAMR successively released four national standards, such as GB/T 40040-2021, Guidelines for catering industry supply chain management, and GB/T 40041-2021, Specifications for information description of food delivery, and included the requirement of reducing food waste into the national standards for homestay inns and tourist resorts.

In the next step, SAMR will promote the development and revision of national standards in the fields such as curbing food waste in canteens of government departments, green food delivery and central kitchen, improve the standards system on conservation-oriented catering, and creating a new consumption mode of being proud of conservation and shameful about food waste in the society.