The Essential Catering Guide to Restaurant Waste Management

Growth and Restaurant Waste Management

Catering businesses are built on the food they serve. Growth in the catering industry relies on consistent and delicious food.

However, on the other side of the same coin, this requires food to be closely managed across the business. If not, costs can spiral.

A lot of this cost can come from food waste. From an analysis of over 200 catering sites, kitchens typically waste between 4-12% of food they buy.

This is a massive opportunity for caterers. Food waste management is a financial opportunity, a way to improve operations efficiency, and a path to reduce climate impact.

In 2015, China wasted roughly 17 to 18 million tonnes of food served in big cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, and Lhasa) as stated by the China Daily, vegetables top the list of food waste identified and accounts for as much as 29% of the total amount. 

The Essential Catering Guide to Restaurant Waste Management reveals how your catering organisation can take advantage of new trends in catering.

Two knowledgeable figures within the industry are sharing their expertise on this issue.

The first is Nancy Nouaimeh, Assistant Vice President of Quality, Safety & Performance Excellence at Abela & Co. Abela & Co are based in the UAE and specialists in food service.

The second contributor is Matthew Merritt -Harrison, Chair of FCSI in the UK. FSCI are a professional association whose membership provides independent catering and foodservice consultancy.

This blog will reveal two core benefits of reducing food waste. If you want the complete guide with all five catering trends along with the proven case studies with foodservice companies, download the Essential Catering Guide to Restaurant Waste Management now. 

Benefit 1: Reduce your food costs

It will not be a particular surprise to anyone in the catering industry that food is one of the major costs, alongside labour and building costs.

While this may be old news, there has been very little done to address the inefficiency of restaurant waste. Catering is a growing area with many new entrants, with millions of dollars spent on food.

Yet reviewing what ends up in the bin is a missing link in the process.

This is a major opportunity for caterers: a 2% overall reduction in food costs can result in a bottom-line saving that results in a much more profitable business

Matthew Merritt -Harrison notes how this is an emerging trend in the industry: “Food waste is becoming an increasingly important priority for caterers...the key drivers are reducing the impact on the environment and sustainability, but it is also about becoming more efficient, by reducing food costs, reducing waste disposal costs and improving profitability.”

New technology enables food waste data to be easily available across a range of catering sites.

Whether you have hundreds of thousands of catering sites, catering companies can monitor the cost of waste across.

Managing food waste was often included in event catering trends in 2019. As food prices continue to go up in many regions, food waste will be part of the trends in catering 2020 too.

Benefit 2: Food waste initiatives can drive new revenue

Catering companies pitching for new business also have an opportunity to win new business with food waste initiatives.

At Winnow, we currently see two main approaches to this.

1. Proactive

Forming a partnership with Winnow and rolling out food waste technology in a number of their kitchens. The knowledge and insight that the caterer builds can be shared with customers, and the sustainable benefits of using the technology are a unique feature in any new business proposal.

This approach demonstrates that the caterer wants to lead the competition on the subject of food waste and can offer the best price for new customers.

  2. Reactive

The client requests that food waste technology is included in the catering proposal. A growing number of corporations include this as part of their sustainability strategy, driven from head office. 

For technology company SAP in Germany, the food waste data is used to report on progress towards environmental targets. This is a corporate catering trend.

Nancy Nouaimeh believes that a policy on food waste can be an advantage for catering companies.

“For those organizations looking at improving their efficiency and sustainability, food waste reduction can be a good differentiator, which benefits the environment, the society and the public image of the organization.”

If you are interested in reading more benefits to adopting food waste management practices, download the Essential Catering Guide to Restaurant waste management here.