Reduce food waste and save money

Wasted food is a major contributor to climate change because most of it ends up in landfill sites where it rots and releases methane, a damaging greenhouse gas. It’s also a huge waste of the energy, water and packaging used in its production, transportation and storage.

What the hotels can do?

• Provide a menu which shows the exact weight of the meal and if it is possible provide different portion sizes (small and big option) for every meal. As the researches shows that main reason why people are leaving food is that portion sizes are too big - 41%.
• Carry out a survey, if possible over the period of at least one week (to take into account busy and quiet days) and monitor how much food waste is left by your customers. It’s also helpful to look at what type of food’s being left (vegetables, meat and etc.)
• If you discovered that salad garnish is usually left, consider making it

more appealing by adding a dressing, reduce the size, don’t serve it at all or offer an alternative.

• If you discovered that chips are left on a regular basis you can

consider reducing the portion size or offer smaller portions/alternatives (mashed potatoes for example).

• Provide Menu choices - you can offer to swap chips for potatoes, salad

for vegetables, etc. to help your customers get the food they want (offer side order refills rather than serving large portions). People need to feel comfortable asking for changes to be made so make this clear on menus before people order.

Example: More than 400 million kilograms of food goes to waste in Finland each year which inspires the organization “From Waste to Taste” to create tasty meals out of food waste (www.ravintolaloop.fi)