Food waste: are you winning not binning?

Hello,

We're coming to the end of Food Waste Action Week,?and while the focus is on helping consumers waste less so they can save more, it’s a terrific reminder for everyone working in hospitality that it’s costing your business (at least ￡10,000 per restaurant per year) and the planet (food waste accounts for close to 10% of manmade greenhouse gas emissions). All at a time when millions are struggling to put food on the table. Especially when 75% of waste is avoidable. Take this opportunity to remind yourself of some simple steps to avoid the bin and win, all the while showing your customers how they can do it too.

First up, and apologies?to all those who do it all the time – when was the last time you measured your food waste? That really is the starting point.

Next – use the old mantra of Reduce, Reuse and Recycle to guide you.

What could your business be doing to prevent waste happening higher up the food chain? There are an increasing number of suppliers supplying foodservice with cosmetically imperfect or surplus fruit and veg, like?Angry Monk. Alternatively, think big, order in a whole carcase, and use every scrap of the animal, along the way helping your customers learn to love some of those cheaper, less commonly cooked cuts.

The ways to reuse food are myriad. At the higher end of the creativity scale, you can copy the chefs turning surplus coffee milk into ricotta and re-milling yesterday’s bread to make flour for tomorrow’s cake. Greater synchronicity between kitchen and bar is a good way to start, what one’s finished with the other can repurpose – think fruit garnishes. An orange twist leaves a lot of peeled oranges, which can simply be juiced, passed on to the kitchen, or turned into an oleo, shrub, or bitters.

And before you reach the point where it comes to recycling – there’s the redistribution option. The first port of call – your customers. When we published our?white paper on food waste?in 2022 with Fourth, plate waste stood out as the final hurdle for many of the UK’s largest restaurant groups, accounting for as much as 80% of their total waste. Smarter portion control is one obvious way of helping customers clean their plate. But when they do leave food, be sure to offer them the chance to take it home where appropriate.

Offering a doggy bag will soon be mandatory in Spain. Surely our readers don’t need legislation on leftovers?! And as for food left in the kitchen those food waste prevention heroes like?Too Good To Go?and?Olio?are queuing up to help you to win not bin.

Have a great?weekend.

Team SRA

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