Anaerobic digestion is a well-established technology for treating organic waste, but it is still under challenge for food waste due to process stability problems. In this work, continuous H-2 and CH4 production from canteen food waste (FW) in a two-stage system were successfully established by optimizing process parameters. The optimal hydraulic retention time was 5 d for H-2 and 15 d for CH4. Overall, around 59% of the total COD in FW was converted into H-2 (4%) and into CH4 (55%). The fluctuations of FW characteristics did not significantly affect process performance. From the energy point view, the H-2 reactor contributed much less than the methane reactor to total energy balance, but it played a key role in maintaining the stability of anaerobic treatment of food waste. Microbial characterization indicated that methane formation was through syntrophic acetate oxidation combined with hydrogenotrophic methanogenesis pathway. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.