Food waste is a problem that the food and beverage industry sector continues to struggle with. Every day, tons of food is thrown away by restaurants around the world. A study reveals that globally, around 1.3 billion tons of food is wasted each year.
To date, more and more restaurants are becoming environmentally conscious by reducing their food waste to a minimum. By reducing food waste, restaurants are helping to save the planet while realizing sustainability. Ultimately, the restaurant will also save more money.
Also read: 4 Essential Benefits that you need to know about Waste Management
The following are strategies that your restaurant can implement to reduce food waste and increase profitability.
Inventory management plays an important role in the effort to reduce food waste. Restaurant managers have to implement good inventory management. This can be done by storing the food properly and providing a backup plan if something goes wrong to avoid spoiled food.
Managers can also arrange the orders and delivery of ingredients to the restaurant to come only when the stock is almost gone and not overstock any ingredients.
To be a sustainable restaurant, managers need to look beyond the food served. Managers need to reuse any product they can. For example, providing reusable napkins. This way, the napkin can be washed and used again, which can reduce expenses and garbage production in the long run.
You can also switch to a laminated menu or put it in a casing to be reused. Paper menu is not sustainable as it is easily stained or ripped, making you need to replace it more often.
Instead of throwing away food, it will be more sustainable to donate it to charity instead. There are many charities available today that accept unused food from restaurants. Other than that, it is a wise way to deal with food wastage.
Try to create a special team to manage the garbage. This team should consist of people that are also involved in meal preparation. This way, they know exactly what specific ingredients are used and how to dispose of them, or how to make less of that certain waste.
When you're operating a restaurant, food waste is sometimes inevitable, but it doesn't mean that there's nothing else you can do. You can make the food waste better for the environment by turning them into compost. This will help restaurants reduce food waste being sent to landfills which produce harmful methane gas.
Another effective strategy to reduce food waste is by making sure you have wise planning and shopping. This means a certain system when shopping for ingredients that make sure it is aligned with your restaurant's demand and not overstock items.
Last but not least is utilizing technology in your effort to reduce food waste. For example, you can use a digital checklist such as Nimbly to make sure you have followed the necessary steps in your restaurant management to reduce food waste.
Reducing food waste may sound difficult, but it is actually easier than you might think with the right strategies. You only need to adopt the strategies mentioned above to reduce food, achieve sustainability, save the planet, and save cost. By doing this, you have contributed to the sustainability and longevity of the planet.
Utilize digital checklists such as Nimbly to streamline your restaurant operation and achieve business sustainability
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