Statistics suggest that almost 40% of all food in the United States is wasted — that’s 119 billion pounds of food yearly. Restaurant owners and other businesspeople in the restaurant industry should aim to reduce restaurant food waste in any way they can.
But what exactly is restaurant food waste, and how can it be prevented?
In this guide, we’ll tell you everything you need to know about restaurant food waste, including essential tips to help you reduce waste in your food service and advice on what to do with food your team can’t use on time.
Restaurant food waste is a term applied to food that’s thrown away in the restaurant industry. It could be food lost due to spoilage, food left on customers’ plates at the end of a meal, or food damaged in some way.
Restaurant food waste is a massive problem in the U.S. In fact, 10.8 million tons of food were wasted in the U.S. in 2019 in restaurants alone — not including food lost from grocery stores or in people’s homes.
We all have a responsibility to work toward a more sustainable future, and restaurant operators are no exception. There are many reasons you should reduce food waste coming out of your restaurant. Let’s have a look at two of the most important.
Toward the end of 2022, greenhouse gas emissions, such as methane and carbon dioxide, reached an all-time high. Sustainability efforts from individuals trying to live a zero-waste lifestyle aren’t enough to counter the damage being done to our planet. We all need to work to reduce our emissions.
Lowering the amount of food waste coming from your restaurant — particularly food that ends up in landfills — is one small step you can take to help the environment.
According to Feeding America, a charity working to end hunger, 34 million people around the U.S. are food insecure, meaning they don’t have access to enough food (or food of good-enough quality) to meet their basic needs. Inflation and the pandemic have exacerbated this issue further.
Nobody should go hungry when so much food is being wasted around the country. As well as reducing your food waste, you can donate any surplus food to food recovery organizations that help deliver food to those in need.
Restaurant food waste reduction doesn’t have to be complicated. There are simple changes you can make to your restaurant’s operating procedures that can help you cut down the amount of food going to waste.
If you notice excess food returning to the kitchen when customers have finished eating, consider reducing your portion sizes. This could make a big difference to your restaurant's food waste output.
An alternative solution is to offer two sizes of meals: large and small. That way, customers who enjoy the larger portions and always finish it can still order them, but other customers can prevent food waste by ordering a smaller size at a reduced price.
Effective inventory management can also be beneficial in reducing restaurant food waste. A suitable point-of-sale (POS) system can help you manage your inventory and ensure you only order what you need.
For example, Square’s Restaurant POS comes with inventory management tools that help restaurateurs stay on top of their food supply chain. Your inventory records will automatically update when customers place an order, meaning you can quickly see what items need restocking.
Using inventory management software to track your inventory can help you avoid ordering unnecessary food that could go to waste due to spoilage. You’ll only order what you need, meaning less food will be thrown away.
Looking at what’s entering your waste stream at the end of the day can help you see what type of food waste you’re generating.
Set aside a service period to carry out a waste audit. Ask your staff to make notes of what’s being thrown away during the service, or hire a waste audit specialist to help you. An audit will let you see which food items are being wasted and how much. With this information, you can take a more targeted approach to adjusting your menu or portion sizes.
If you’re opening a new restaurant, write food waste prevention methods into your business plan to ensure you’re doing everything possible to prevent food loss in your back-of-house operations.
Ensuring your standard operating procedures include steps to minimize food waste can make an enormous difference from month to month.
Preventing all restaurant food waste is almost impossible. If you’re working in the food industry, there’s bound to be some food that customers don’t eat or that staff has to throw away.
In addition to reducing restaurant food waste, you should ensure you’re dealing with any food waste you do generate appropriately.
Food donation is a great way to repurpose your ingredients that may be lost to spoilage before you can use them.
Various nonprofit organizations can take surplus food and ingredients from restaurants and donate them to food banks or local charities working with families facing food insecurity.
Food Rescue is a nonprofit app that connects local businesses like restaurants with volunteers who will pick up leftover food and transport it to social services agencies. Reach out to your local or regional site director to find out how your restaurant can get involved with a donation program.
Donating to charities like this also comes with financial incentives. Restaurants get tax deductions for charitable giving, and you can also reduce your refuse collection bill or trash removal costs.
Composting peels, skins, and other organic waste is another excellent way to prevent food from going to a landfill. Set up a composting bin in your kitchen instead of using the standard garbage disposal.
You can compost food scraps yourself or send them out to a composting facility. Some companies can even turn food waste into energy with an anaerobic digester.
Alternatively, you can send fruit and vegetable scraps to local farms that can use them as animal feed or as compost to help them grow their produce.
There are so many options available, so look into the composting facilities in your town or city and make sure no organic products end up in a landfill.
Restaurant food waste is a huge problem but is easily preventable. We should all take steps to reduce the quantity of waste we produce to ensure we’re doing what we can for the environment. Inventory management tools can be instrumental in helping restaurant managers cut down on their food waste.
KioskBuddy is a self-service kiosk app that works with Square POS to make it easy for customers to place and pay for orders themselves with just a few taps. It will also integrate with Square’s inventory tools, meaning you can easily stay on top of your food supply as orders are placed.
Sign up for KioskBuddy to set up self-service machines in your restaurant.