Food waste and cost saving: this combination is skin-tight and an important factor of influence for the commercial success in corporate and community catering as well as in gastronomy. Whoever doesn’t use foodstuffs optimally and avoids food waste as much as possible burns money. But there are also other reasons for tackling intensively the problem of the resource-saving use of food.
By Dieter Mailander, mailander marketing
In many European countries, the situation may be similar to Germany: In restaurants of hypermarkets, in canteens, hospitals, nursing homes, college cafeterias but also in classical gastronomy, at least 20% of the food, which has been delivered to those places, goes into the wet waste garbage can. The association, “United Against Waste” (UAW) published these numbers recently in its interim balance in 2017. They are based on detailed evaluations of 393 corporate and community catering operations (94%) and of the hotel industry (6%). The result: between 143 and 165 g per serving are thrown away. This food waste occurs at three stages in the value chain:
- In the production
- By producing excessive amounts, which weren’t served and
- By returns of leftovers on the plates
There are many reasons why guests, patients or residents don’t eat up all of their food. For instance, the servings are too large, don’t taste acceptable, or are presented on the plates unattractively. Wherever the causes in an operation may be, food waste incurs significant costs – the food has to be paid for, as well as the disposal of its waste materials. The UAW has calculated the yearly food waste costs for the interviewed operations. A canteen with 1,300 meals daily “plunges” 69,000 € yearly due to its food waste of 108 g per meal. In a hospital with 1,100 meals daily and food waste of 143 g per meal, the costs add up to 110,000 €. What has not been considered in this calculation, is that the manpower of the employees is used quite unproductively. The costs are de facto considerably higher than calculated by the UAW. Therefore, it is not a question of peanuts, but a question of economically relevant sizes with considerable saving potentials, which the food service managers are able to exploit or not. This applies to those in Germany, but presumably for their colleagues in each other country in the European Community in a similar way.
EU: 865 kg Food per Capita – 20% Food Waste!
In 2012, the 28 countries of the community produced 865 kg of food per capita. 20% of this (173 kg) was food waste. Just below 50% was accumulated in private households, 11% in foodservice. The third largest perpetrator is the food industry. On the other hand, agriculture and commerce don’t play an important role.
But there are also other examples for operations, which handle their food in a very responsible way. For example, in the MST clinic in Enschede, Netherland, which was opened in 2016, a gastronomical concept was installed, with which food waste on the stations and in the restaurant was reduced down to below 3% of the amount used. However, one has to take into consideration that in this clinic, it is still only cooked to a limited extent in the restaurant. There, one uses pre-prepared dishes frequently i.e. a part of the food waste is shifted to the pre-stages, which certainly manages it very professionally. An important key factor for the MST clinic is the continual monitoring of the flow of information about the pending dis-charges and operations. For both groups of patients, a main meal doesn’t have to be planned. This brings about a considerable savings effect.
Food Waste, Reduction, Approaches
During cooking, food waste like bones, skins from bananas, cores from pineapples, or egg shells accrues inevitably. However, one can reduce the leftovers on plates considerably, which occur due to oversized servings. For example, chefs can offer seconds, where dishes are not distributed on the stations or in living groups. But there is avoidable waste too. Vege-tables that don’t look fresh any more can be cooked up to the appropriate vertical range of manufacture such as to a vegetable stock. It is therefore not a matter of goals far from reality to avoid food waste, but a matter of reducing them noticeably – for economic and ecological reasons. There are many approaches for this. Not every chef is able to implement all of them, but after intensive, critical examination of the practice, which is suitable for him or her in his daily work.
According to the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), 840 million people, this is over 11% of the world population (7.6 billion), are suffering from hunger. At the same time, there is so much food compatible raw materials harvested that one could feed 12 to 14 billion people with this. This is also a reason why – perhaps it is even the most important – and not only with regards to the costs, it is much-needed that we all have to pay close attention to a responsible use of food.
Food Waste Reduction Steps
- Sensitization
- Inform and train employees: strengthen their sense of responsibility
- Collect data on the amounts of food waste
- Ask guests, why they are returning their food
- Make an inventory of stocks at frequent intervals
- Planning
- Analyze the structure of the guests – the percentage of female/male guests, age, number of vegetarians /vegans, etc.
- Specify the factor of influence on the production volume – sickness absentee rate, dismissals, operations, groups of guests etc.
- Events
- Plan the number of events optimally
- Communicate that the host would like to avoid food waste and therefore reduces the food selection at the end of the event
- Reduce the number of offers towards the end
- Replenish the buffet regularly and at frequent intervals
- Production
- Standardized recipes (Food Management Control System)
- Serving Meals
- Smaller plates, smaller servings
- Offer seconds
- Reuse
- Donate food and dishes that are still edible or have not been eaten to the needy
- Disposal
- Calculate the amortization of a system for the processing of leftovers
