The hospitality industry is facing major issues in controlling energy, water usage and chemical consumption. What often goes neglected by many hoteliers is food waste this can no longer be seen as a necessary evil. A sustainability approach must be adopted be it for ethical, financial or purely for branding reasons.

Food monitoring systems

Food monitoring systems should be implemented at all hotels, with clear waste labels (spoilage waste, preparation waste, buffet waste and customer plate waste). This could substantially decrease hotels food waste. The impact of food waste is far more drastic than the financial implications, but the amount of waste food that ends up in landfill sites contribute significantly to our current global warming crisis. The United Nations have declared that they will cut down their food waste by 50 percent in 2030, the European Union is being even more ambitious and planning on getting the same done by 2020.  The United Nations have recently set eliminating food waste as one of their sustainable development goals.

Reducing food waste has a knock on effect on the entire food chain, in terms of harvesting costs, packaging and transportation costs. Needless energy won’t be wasted and we will see a decrease in land and water pollution. By reducing food waste in hotels, it improves staff retention, reduced operational costs, energy, water, disposable and recyclable chemical waste.

How bad is it really?

Hunger is a huge problem worldwide. People who don’t consume enough calories each day cannot live a full and productive life. Hunger causes devastating effects on people’s physical and mental well-being.  Wasting food also squanders valuable resources such as water, energy, fertilizers and land. As the population increases each year, we are facing shortages in resources on so many levels. So it’s a really big problem guys!

Who is responsible for all this waste?

Well, that depends on where you live. In developing countries like South Africa (and many, many others), food is typically wasted due to loss on farms during harvesting or packaging (for example fruit and veg with ‘marks’ are discarded even though the item is perfectly fine to eat), or on the way to storage during transportation, or at storage facilities where infrastructure or storage conditions may not be adequate enough.

Oxfam has calculated that 13-million South Africans go to bed hungry every single night in South Africa. While the vast number of South Africans crave food they cannot access, the country somehow, without any pangs of shame or shouts of rebellion, manages to dump food valued at R60-billion.

In developed countries like the England for example, food is often wasted at retail level or at consumer level. That’s possibly even more tragic. Supermarkets order more than they can sell; consumers buy more than they need often because of advertising or special offers and consumers throw away food that is still good because they misunderstand the ‘sell by’ date instruction.

Overview of waste in the hospitality and food service sector

The cost of food being wasted in the UK from the UK hospitality and food service (HaFS) sector is estimated at £2.5 billion per year in 2011, rising to £3.0 billion per year by 2016.

Key findings

• The total amount of waste, including food, packaging and other ‘non-food’ waste produced each year at HaFS outlets is 2.87 million tons, of which 46% is recycled sent to anaerobic digestion (AD) or composted.
• Of this, 920,000 tons of food is wasted at outlets each year, 75% of which is avoidable and could have been eaten.
• 40% of food that is wasted is carbohydrates, including potatoe, bread, pasta and rice. Reduced wastage in carbohydrates would have a significant impact on the total amount of food being wasted.
• The amount of food that is wasted each year in the UK is equivalent to 1.3 billion meals, or one in six of the 8 billion meals served each year.
• On average 21% of food waste arises from spoilage; 45% from food preparation and 34% from consumer plates.
• 12% of all food waste is recycled.
• 3 million tons of packaging and 0.66 million tons of other ‘non-food’ wastes are also discarded, that includes items such as disposable kitchen paper and newspapers.
• 62% of packaging and other ‘non-food’ waste is recycled. The highest level of recycling is for glass and cardboard.
• 56% of packaging and other ‘non-food’ waste that is thrown away could have been recycled.
• In addition to this a further 130,000 tons of food waste is generated from the preparation of ready to serve food items and meals for the HaFS sector, at food manufacturing sites.

How can we make a difference?

Everyone can play their role, no matter how small. Here are some cool tips to eliminating food waste in your home, on campus at IHS, in the practical kitchens you may use or one day in your restaurant.

• Plan your shopping or your order for your restaurant. Check exactly how much you will need, and check if you have some of those ingredients already in the cupboard or dry store. Don’t purchase what you don’t need…even if there is a great but possibly unnecessary special.
• At home, reduce  your portion size to avoid throwing away uneaten food. You could always go back for seconds…it’s better than dishing up too much and throwing away what you leave.
• Store, freeze, and re-engineerleftovers. You’d be surprised how well they can go down on day 2.
• Shop and buy local– cut out the middle man where most of the waste occurs.
• Prepare meals and menus that are seasonal. Cook foods that are in season as opposed to buying out of season goods that have to be packaged and stored.
• Grow  your own fresh produce – fruit, veggies, herbs, and so much more.
• Worm Farms are easy and cheap to set up. Throw your scarp foods into your wormerie and enjoy free fertilizer which you can use to fertilise your next lot of home grown fresh produce.

The hospitality industry should attempt to wholeheartedly embrace sustainability. If you have any hints, tips and ideas on how to reduce food waste, drop us a line in the comment section below.

(Source; www.wrap.org.uk, hwww.dailymaverick.co.za, www.sustainablebrands.com image; wecaregreen.com