How to Reduce Food Waste: A Guide for Businesses
Global hunger levels have continued to rise for the past few years, resulting in a staggering 733 million people facing hunger in 2023. Reports show food production is not the issue — manufacturers worldwide produce enough food to feed everyone. One of the problems involves food waste. Almost one-fifth of all food fit for human consumption is wasted or lost.
While food service businesses contribute significantly to food waste, they also have the power to create change. This guide covers how to reduce food waste in restaurants and other food service facilities. With the right tips and strategies, your business can work toward reducing its negative impact on the planet and its people.
The Impact of Food Waste
Food waste has far-reaching impacts on:
- People: Wasting food exacerbates food insecurity and hunger, as every piece of discarded edible food could have fed someone in need. By prioritizing food waste prevention, businesses can ensure the food they purchase is put to good use.
- Businesses: Whether during preparation or service, companies lose money every time they throw away purchased food. Consequently, reducing food waste can save a substantial amount of money in the long run.
- The planet: When people waste food, they also waste all the resources that helped produce it, such as water, energy and fuel. Discarded food also ends up in landfills, where it produces harmful greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. Businesses that use up all their food can reduce their impact on the planet and make the resource use worthwhile.
Ways to Minimize Food Waste at Your Establishment
Every business that serves food can play its part in reducing food waste. The rewards for doing so are worth the effort — less food waste can save your business money, boost its reputation and increase customer loyalty. So, how can you minimize food waste? Education, prevention and reuse are key.
Use the following strategies to create initiatives that help you achieve your food waste goals.
1. Educate and Train Staff
Staff are often responsible for purchasing, preparing, cooking, serving and disposing of food. To reduce food waste at your facility, they should know how they contribute toward wastage and what they can do to help. Create comprehensive food waste courses and manuals to educate staff on the importance of reducing food waste, and teach them the best practices to follow. Educating staff will empower them to make more informed decisions with food.
Frequently train staff on good food practices following their initial education so that the information remains fresh in their minds. You can also ask for their feedback and ideas — they may know more about the business’s daily food operations than you do.
2. Purchase Wisely
Studies show that restaurants waste up to 10% of the food they purchase before it reaches the customer’s plate. Most of this waste occurs due to imbalances in production and demand. Businesses often order and cook too much food, which they eventually have to throw away.
An easy way to begin is to track food waste — which products do staff throw away the most, and why? Implement food inventory management systems to track food usage data. Your business can also examine trends in customer orders to understand demand better. Using this information, you can adjust food purchases and reduce the risk of ordering too much.
3. Improve Storage
Your business may have to waste food before you even use it. Often, the culprits are improper storage methods and poor inventory management, resulting in spoiled, inedible food. Periodically assess freezers and fridges to ensure they run at the correct temperatures. Keep storage areas clean, and place high-risk foods at eye level. Record and track expiry dates daily so you use food in time.
4. Implement Zero-Waste Policies
A zero-waste policy is an excellent way to prevent food waste, as it involves using every piece of food and throwing away nothing. While it may not be possible to go completely zero-waste, you can start by incorporating every part of an ingredient into meals. For example, you can use offal from meat in dishes and turn vegetable scraps into powders for seasoning. You can also switch up your menu to use ingredients that are piling up or expiring soon. If you cannot use an ingredient immediately, consider preserving it through fermentation or pickling and using it in future meals.
5. Adjust Portions
If customers consistently leave food on their plates, it may be time to adjust your serving portions. Start monitoring the average amount of unfinished food to spot excess portion sizes. Serve smaller portions for these menu items, and be transparent about portion sizes with customers. You can charge less for smaller portions to make them more appealing to customers.
When customers do leave food on their plates, encourage them to take it home in a to-go bag to eat later.
6. Use a Compost Bin and Donate Leftovers
Even with all your efforts to reduce and prevent waste, your business may still end up with some food it can’t use. Instead of throwing it away, consider other options. For example, you could place food scraps in a compost bin to create organic fertilizer for growing food or tending to gardens on the premises. Some farmers also accept leftover food to feed their animals.
You can also donate any surplus food that is still edible to a food bank or charitable organization. They’ll distribute the food to those in need. Examples of foods you can donate include unspoiled perishable items like loaves of bread or unperishable pantry items like cans of vegetables.
How Food Distributors Help Reduce Waste
Individual businesses are often unable to address food waste problems on their own. Collaborating with other parties in the supply chain is a more effective strategy to eliminate waste in the long term.
If your business orders food from a food distributor, you can partner with them to bolster your food waste efforts. They can help reduce waste through things like:
- Consultations: Food distributors know the industry well and have expertise and insights. Request a consultation with your distribution partner to see how they can help you reduce waste.
- Custom orders: Food distributors can minimize waste by offering flexible food orders, such as customizable quantities and delivery timelines. Use these advantages to eliminate overstocking and food spoilage.
- Forecasting: Food distributors often collect data surrounding demand and trends with your business’s purchases and the food industry as a whole. This data allows them to create reliable demand forecasts that ensure you order the correct quantities of food and minimize excess inventory.
Partner With Feeser’s Food Distributors to Generate Less Waste
At Feeser’s, we pride ourselves on our ability to meet customer needs. If you want to reduce your business’s food waste, we’re happy to help. Feeser’s began as a produce stand more than 100 years ago, and now, we’re one of the largest food service distributors throughout the Mid-Atlantic region. We stock over 8,000 high-quality fresh and frozen ingredients from local sources and national brands.
Feeser’s is family-owned and operated, and we care deeply about the people we serve. We’ll partner with you and take the time to understand your business. From there, we’ll find the right products and quantities for you and tailor our services to meet your unique requirements. Our team has plenty of ideas and solutions to help you tackle food waste.
Start working with us today by filling out our online application form. You can also contact us online or call 1-800-326-2828 to learn more about our services.