Reducing Food Waste In Restaurants

Reduce Your Restaurant’s Food Waste 

With 2/3 of food waste in restaurants being avoidable, let’s discuss how to reduce food waste in these establishments. 

Perform a Waste Audit 

An excellent place to start is by gathering information. A waste audit will help you know exactly how much is being wasted. 

There are a lot of different ways to go about doing this. Some options include categorizing and weighing your trash. Or you can keep a log of everything that gets thrown away. 

Here are some things to keep track of: 

• How often do ingredients get tossed  

• How much food is left while clearing off a table  

• What items aren’t selling well 

These three areas will help you know if you’re buying too many single ingredients, how to improve your portion control, and what items you should remove from your menu. 

FIFO 

First in, first out (FIFO) is a method for inventory rotation. To put the phrase simply, use older food items before newer items. 

An uncomplicated way of organizing is labeling each ingredient with the date purchased and the date it’s projected to spoil. It’s also best practice to arrange your inventory by type. 

Maintaining good inventory management will take extra effort. However, your food will be fresher, you’ll waste less, and your margins will increase. 

Multi-Use or Re-Purposed Food 

When preparing your menu, it’s essential to consider ingredients with multiple uses. Avoid menu items that require a single element, unusable in other dishes.  

Another option is repurposed food. You can turn yesterday’s bread into croutons. One restaurant owner used fat scraps from whole cow purchases to make butter. 

Weekly specials are also a great way to sell food before it spoils. You could even repurpose the food by making a daily or weekly special using surplus food. 

Use Seasonal Ingredients 

Seasonal ingredients are best when they’re in season. You may find that purchasing the same number of seasonal ingredients year-round may end in more waste during their off-season. 

If it’s fresh, only use it in-season. This practice ensures quality, promotes urgency for customers to order, and that you can use up the whole inventory before the menu changes. 

Invest in Technology 

Decreasing inaccuracies during the ordering process is a solution for refires.  

Investing in technology with handheld point of sale (POS) devices for servers increases communication between the front and back of house. Heightened communication further decreases any mistakes while ordering. 

Here’s What to Do With Food Waste 

We can do a lot to prevent food waste in our restaurants on the front end, but some food wastage might be inevitable.  

In this area, we can combat food insecurity and reduce the direct climate impact of our activities. 

Feed Your Employees 

Your restaurant may create a lot of leftover food. Don’t let that go to waste. Items that aren’t reheatable for customers can become tomorrow’s employee lunch. 

There’s no reason you can’t repurpose leftover food for your employees to enjoy, especially if it would otherwise end up in the dumpster. 

Donate 

Good ingredients don’t always fit into your menu. You can donate these ingredients to food banks, helping your community decrease food insecurity. 

Start by looking for local organizations and connecting with any food rescue programs to which you could donate any leftover food. 

Compost or Recycle 

Finally, you can repurpose unused food scraps in a variety of ways. 

Non-Meat products are compostable, and their extra nutrients make excellent plant fertilizers. If pick-up is unavailable in your municipality, you can always start a garden for fresh produce.