Your business is food, don’t throw it away
It’s simple. Reducing the amount of food your hospitality or food service business throws away can boost your bottom line.
Food waste it’s an issue that businesses can take action on. And the good news is that it doesn’t cost the Earth and needn’t be time consuming. In fact, it has been demonstrated (by WRAP and others working with the HaFS sector) that businesses who monitor and measure the food that they throw away, on a regular basis, can help to identify hotspots and take action. This means that they can and do make substantial savings to their bottom line.
A bit about food that’s thrown away
Food waste can be generated across your business. It can occur at purchasing, storage and preparation, through to leftovers on customers’ plates. What’s thrown away is not just food, but also staff time and disposal costs.
Your business is food, don’t throw it away
We’ve developed a toolkit – called Your Business is Food; don't throw it away – that will help you through a very straightforward three-step process:
- Step 1 Review the food you throw away
- Step 2 Make an action plan
- Step 3 Keep it going!
Here’s what you gain by throwing away less food:
- You’ll save money on purchasing and waste disposal costs.
- Less food thrown away means more profit and reduced operating costs.
- Reducing the amount of food you throw away helps the environment.
Ready to get going? Here’s how to start:
- Get your team on board by explaining why you are reducing food waste.
- Choose days to run the review which are typical for your business; a mix of days when you’re busy and when you’re quiet.
- Find a Your Business is Food Champion to drive the process.
- To capture the food thrown away, set out separate containers for Spoilage, Preparation and Plate. Label the containers so that staff know where to put the food.
- Weigh the containers and record against each day for each type of food thrown away on the 3 day or 7 day tracking sheet
- Find out how much you could be saving over a year with this simple calculator tool. Instructions can be found in the Quick Start Guide.
- To keep food waste prevention front of mind, use the poster and checklist in your kitchen.
Everything you need to know about how to run the process is in our Starter Guide – this will give you all the pointers you need to get up and running.
