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EPCASFood Waste ReductionGuidebook

There is no Time to Waste!

Photo: Maison van den Boer

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EPCAS Food Waste Initiative

The initiative supports EPCAS members to reduce their food waste and become food waste sensitive. The facts learn us that too much food is wasted, which is bad for the environment and costs a lot of money. Fighting food waste is a shared responsibility. Together we have to create awareness on how to reduce food waste.

We strive for EPCAS members to be sensible and aware regarding food waste. This guidebook provides all the necessary information regarding your food waste reduction. By using the information which consists of tips and tricks, a waste reduction value chain and several templates, it visualizes where your waste occurs and helps to become pro-active in avoiding or minimizing food waste, wherever it matters.

The initiative consists of three levels which can be achieved; bronze, silver and gold.

What do you need to achieve bronze?

Food waste sensitivity

- Brief your staff yearly concerning food waste

- Sign EPCAS Code of Conduct

What do you need to achieve silver?

Food waste awareness

- Measure food waste

- Show figures in Quarterly EPCAS Monitor

What do you need to achieve gold?

Food waste prevention

- Written plan on implementing measures

- Integrated proceduresReducing food waste is one of the biggest challenges for the hospitality industry world wide. In the UK alone, over 4 million tonnes of organic waste is thrown out every year – and this number is increasing! The food we throw away is a waste of valuable resources; it is expensive to buy and dispose of.

Food has a high carbon ‘footprint’. It requires considerable energy to grow, harvest, transport, process, package, retail and prepare and consequently has a serious impact on our planet.

HealtH & Care

tHe agenda for tHe futuretHere is no time to Waste!

food

In Europe, 180 kg of food is wasted

per person per year

American and European food waste could feed the 3rd world

Every year 20 million tons of fish is thrown back

into the sea

Global population growth projections of 2–3 billion people over the next 40

years, combined with changing diets, result in a predicted increase in food

demand of 70% by 2050

Water

In 2013, 36% of the global population lives in water-scarce regions. If we do nothing, this will increase

to 50% by 2050

An average of 1,000 m3 of water is needed to produce the 2,800 daily calories required for a nourished diet

780 million people do not have access to clean water and almost 2.5 billion do not have access to adequate

sanitation

Global water demand will in-crease by some 55%, due to growing demand from

manufacturing (+400%), thermal power plants (+140%)

and domestic use (+130%)

PoWer

By 2050, we could get all the energy we need from renewable sources

More than half of the heat we pump into our homes

disappears through walls, windows and roofs

1.4 billion people have no access to reliable

electricity

If 0.3% of the Sahara desert was a concentrated

solar plant, it would power all of Europe

The global cost of lighting is $230 billion per year

Pollution

A city affects a large area outside its own

boundaries. London alone will need an area of almost 300 times its size to satisfy its demands and to dispose

its waste and emissions

Air pollutants can travel thousands of kilometres by air.

In many cities, only a part of local air pollution is

generated by the city itself

Rich countries will suffer worse effects from

exposure to ground-level ozone, because of their ageing populations –

older people are more susceptible

Urban air pollution is set to become the top environmental cause of mortality world-wide by 2050, ahead of dirty water and lack of sanitation

CHanging markets

Online Travel Agencies are becoming increasingly influential.

On average, they demand commissions of 15 to 25%

The retail industry is focusing more and more on hospitality. Is this blurring a threat to

traditional hospitality?

Consumer to consumer initiatives like Air B&B and

Couchsurfing are upcoming alternatives to hotel accommodation.

Couchsurfing has 1,2 million beds on offer, all over the world

In response to the technologization of society, there is a growing need for

authenticity; in product, in concept, in perception

initiated by suPPorted by

eduCationLaying the foundation Creating awareness

Our society is ageing. Customer needs are changing, as we are

growing older

Obesity is a major risk factor for a number of

chronic diseases;diabetes, cardiovascular

diseases and cancer

More than 1.4 billion adults are overweight.

Of these, over 200 million men and nearly 300 million

women are obesePeople are becoming more and

more conscious about their options and choices

regarding a healthy lifestyle. The hospitality industry

also has a responsibility in this matter

Currently the Health Care Industry is not known

for being very hospitable

Whatever happens in the following years, 50% of our customers

will be online. New strategies for E- and M-Commerce

need to be developed

The Agenda for the Future: There is no Time to Waste!Living together, now and in the future. In 2050, the world population will consist of 9 billion people. This means that we need to make changes now, in order to be ready tomorrow! For this reason, we must find new ways to keep the world liveable for everyone, even then. To

underline the global problems even more, transnational cooperation is a necessity. In order

to create awareness and come up with sustainable solutions, we like to bring ‘The

Agenda for the Future – There is no Time to Waste!’ to the attention, consisting of 6 global issues.

Everybody can and should participate to start reducing food waste. But there is more to do! Please join us in working on The Agenda for the Future, because there is no Time to Waste!

WAStinG Food iS EConomi-

CAlly bAd, EnviRonmEn-

tAlly WRonG And moRAlly,

EthiCAlly inACCEPtAblE!

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The hidden cost of wasteWaste is a hot topic on today’s public and political agenda. There is a huge amount of global waste and the issue has to be addressed.

Besides the global aspect of food waste, there are economic implications that can determine the success or a failure of a business.

Disposal costs are the first that come to mind. This is the cost of items that have to be thrown away because they are out of date. However, there’s more than just the cost of the food thrown away that needs to be considered:

• Lost labour involved in preparing items

• Wasted energy for the delivery, preservation and preparation

• Lost revenues due to lost labour, energy and food cost

• Losses due to potential liabilities and other risks

With the tools and advice presented in this module you can make considerable cost savings by implementing some small but creative changes in your business.

Proper waste management can save you serious money. It is estimated that every tonne of food waste produced costs between €2,000 and €5,000 per year.*

Why should you wise up on waste?

• You can run a more profitable and efficient business when you reduce the ‘hidden costs’ of waste

• You can reduce the risk of compromising health and safety regulations

• You can create waste awareness among staff/management • Your business can make a valuable contribution to

the environment

Inedible

Left on plate

Out of date

Mouldy

Looked bad

Smelt/tasted bad

Left from cooking

Other

In fridge/cupboard

too long

36.5%

15.7%

15.1%

9.3%

8.8%

4.5%

4%

3.8%

1.5%

Different reasons of food waste

* Source: Koninklijke Van den Boer Groep

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The waste reduction value chainThe essence of effective waste management can be found in the three R’s: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.

The three R’s become evident in several stages of the kitchen process. Wise up on Waste focuses on reducing the waste margin across all areas of your business.

The preparation bin 1 covers waste in mise en place and preparation for transport

The plate waste bin covers portioning and plate waste.

The preparation bin 2 covers waste from the kitchen on the event location.

As you can see from the diagram the waste generated from the different areas of the kitchen can be segmented into 4 different types of waste; spoilage, preparation in the mise en place kitchen, preparation at the event location kitchen and plate waste. By segmenting your waste you will be able to see where your waste occurs.

Optimizing these steps means:

1. Purchasing: have real-time control over your stock and the sold items

2. Storage: maintain an overview of stock, using an improved date sticker system

3. Mise en Place: produce items once you are sure they will be utilized, to make sure you are not over producing

4. Preparation storage: keep your products safe, sealed and cooled and maintain an overview of what goes in and comes out.

5. Transport: put your products safe, sealed and cooled in the transportation provided.

6. Catering kitchen: only prepare the amount needed and

keep unused products cool and ready for reuse.

7. Plate Waste: the right portions will prevent your kitchen from producing excessive plate waste

8. Disposal: learn from your plate waste and dispose of your organic waste sustainably

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8. Disposal

1. Purchasing

2. Storage 3. Mise en place kitchen

4. Preparation for transport 7. Plate Waste

5. Transport

6. Catering Kitchen

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The spoilage bincovers waste from overpurchasing and the stock room, fridges & freezers.

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Waste AuditSo what do you need to do?

Step 0 – Brief your staff on the importance of food waste reduction.

Step 1 – Use our waste audit to measure your current waste levels.

Step 2 – Identify where most of your waste occurs – i.e. from over purchasing or store room spoilage, from mise en place and preparation or from plate waste.

Step 3 – Take action! Use our advice and tools to make improvements and involve your staff.

Step 4 – Continue the waste audit and see how much you have saved.

The waste audit has been developed as a clear and simple method of measuring food waste. It will give you visibility of the waste you are producing in each area. It will help you track waste information in a way that is informative for you and your staff and can highlight areas where food waste can be reduced.

Staff briefing sheet that explains the necessary steps to be undertaken by the staff

Waste chart per bin for your staff to record food waste data throughout the audit

Information signs for staff awareness, to be placed in easy view of staff in all food preparation and disposal areas

Case Studies which explain in more detail the results from, and benefits to, caterers who have undertaken this food waste audit

Signage per bin for food waste bins (i.e. prep/spoilage/plate) if you wish to use these

Food waste data tracking sheet for recording data and linking food waste to KPIs

Did you know if a restaurant reduced its food waste by just 20% it could:

• Reduce food waste collection costs by €180-€2040*

• Prevent 2-3% of their total food spend being thrown away*

* Source: Sustainable Restaurant Association, Restaurant Food Waste Survey Report (2010) Based on study of 10 UK Restaurants.

Food waste reduction of around 20% is a potentially achievable target for most

Before we consider waste across the six areas of the value chain, there are several steps that must be taken in order to reduce the waste in general. Make sure there is good communication between the sales- and kitchen department.

Employ efficient forecasting

Make sure you use a well-balanced menu

Ensure that staff is committed and willing to make the effort to reduce the waste

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We recommend continuous measuring, as part of the day to day operations of your company. Ensure that management regularly reviews the data ( kilos of spoilage per bin), to get accurate data of your operations across quieter and busier days. Then, take action to reduce these amounts. An Excel template is provided to record weekly data. tool Kit

party caterers*

Photo: Steffen Traiteur

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‘‘Chef, what are you selling?’’

Impact your food waste!

Before you can concern about menu planning and portion control in the mise en place and execution of the event, there is a process called ‘SALES’ first.

Do you give your salespeople carte blanche, or do you give them a clever engineered food manual?

Of course our business is about very pleasant events and the food part should breathe that: it must be a party to the eye first, it must be rich, and it must have great taste and diversity on the plate. It is a party, right?

But why do you choose to waste a certain amount of food upfront?

Considering your menus:

• Normal grown-ups can handle about 700 grams of food in total per diner meal, and that isn’t different at party time. Analyse how much food you give per guest. You will find parties where you give over 1200 grams of food per guest. In that case you know upfront what food waste you will get. Engineer towards normal grams per guest.

• Add to your food manual that you have given your salespeople a simple overview for grams per dish, so that a salesperson can calculate the amount of food he is proposing to his customer.

• In your analysis of grams per guest, what differences did you find in the form of serving your food items: buffets – walking dinner – sit down diner - finger food? It is obvious that buffets generate more food waste than plate service or finger food items given in the hands of your guest.

• People have a mechanism called ‘biological clock’. What is the serving time of food in the party floor? It influences the amount of food that will be eaten.

Considering your influence:

• Discuss with the sales department what they think about the food manual that you have re-engineered to reduce food waste. They must hear your reasoning about it and they must be able to tell that story to their prospect-customer. It has to become their thing in the market, not only yours. It could very well become a (unique) selling point for your company.

• Now that you are around the table with the sales department: make them sell the same food items as much as possible. Reward them for that. You will have less production-loss of ingredients because of the larger production charges and you will reduce your labour cost per day. Your cooks are going to love you for that!

• After measuring food waste, evaluate your success together with the sales department. Do they succeed in getting the right price for your new menu? How does this influence your total sales? In time you will see that not only your food waste reduces, but that you sell less food per party. Of course, you don’t sell it for a lower price! We are sure that the lower price per event combined with the sustainability effort gives you a larger market perspective.

So chef…

Are you going to help sales score with low waste of food?

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Smart StaffProper food stock management (ordering minimum stock, rotating stock), menu planning and portion control are important areas for minimizing food waste. Your staff will play a key role in implementing guidelines to minimize waste, so their training and motivation is vital.

All staff must be made aware of the procedures and steps that should be taken:

• Kitchen-, sales- and waiting staff should be aware of the benefits of waste management. Take time to show your staff how to optimize waste procedures; it’s your challenge to keep them motivated and updated!

• If possible, a ‘green team’ of staff members from all sections of the company (chef, purchasing staff, preparation staff, and waiting staff) could be set up to take the lead in reducing waste

• Staff should be encouraged to provide suggestions on possible improvements

• Make employees aware of improvements and savings; this will motivate and encourage them to improve

• Use our set of reduction posters to communicate the importance of waste in your company

tool KitWaste awareness poster

Staff briefing powerpoint

1. Effective purchasingThe easiest way to reduce waste is to not to purchase excess food in the first place. You can only uphold a tight purchasing policy when you have a proper system of insights into your past, present and future.

A menu must be integrated with thorough purchasing and production procedures to be effective. The menu will fail if these two areas have not been integrated. Purchasing must correctly interpret what ingredients are required and ensure availability in time for production. Kitchen staff must prepare the food on time, keeping food costs, quality, safety and quantity in mind. Purchasing and production are part of a complete system that revolves around the menu.

For larger companies, kitchen management software can save large sums of money, but for smaller or independent operators it’s often not necessary and very expensive.

Purchasing software programs provide valuable information about the planning, purchasing and ordering process. They use powerful formulas, analyse historical and forecasted usage for each item: seasonal trends, market demand, and reservation lead times to provide suggested purchase orders.

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Photo: Fruy Finest Food Catering

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Purchasing Tips

• Do not over-order food: only order the minimum amount required for a period to avoid unnecessary spoilage

• Cook seasonal: A properly managed menu includes seasonal cooking. Ingredients that are out of season have made a longer journey to your kitchen and have a higher risk of spoilage

• Only buy bulk if it fits with your demand or if the ingredients are non-perishable: economies of scale can be a real opportunity, however, you’ll be surprised at the costs of throwing away the excess stock

• Establish clear agreements between yourself and suppliers: Both have to be happy with the quality and agree on a set standard

• Primary purchaser: Ensure there is one person who places orders. This will avoid duplication of orders or the wrong quantity being ordered. It will also leverage purchasing relationships

• Build a relationship with your suppliers: Treat them well and they will alert you to good deals, bring second daily deliveries if you get a run on certain items (meaning you can be generally leaner on stock as you know they will deliver again in the day)

• Consider frozen, dried, bottled or tinned goods as opposed to fresh where a comparable quality can be achieved: This way you do not compromise the integrity of your product, but reduce the amount of potentially perishable items and associated waste

2. Storage Stock control is focused on minimizing cost and holding space while ensuring enough product availability to meet demand. Hospitality operators work with high stock levels so they can react to peeks. However, maintaining excess stock can actually cost money. The cost of stock can be divided into three areas:

• Cost of storage

• Cash flow and interest considerations

• Cost of spoilage

Cost of storageHolding large quantities of stock can reduce your turnover.

Cash flow and interest considerations

Without stock there is no revenue. However, there are costs related with holding stock. A common misunderstanding concerning economies of scale is that the discount generated due to buying bulk is direct profit. However, capital tied up in stock is no longer liquid, and cannot be used for cash flow or to earn interest.

Cost of spoilageExcess stock is locked-up capital that often has an expiry date and is high risk. There is always a chance that products damage, dates expire or products get stolen. Also consider the cost or ordering/storing the same stock twice.

It will cost you money when you don’t use the FiFo system. This system amplifies the first in, first out method. This is useful when you are working with perishable goods. When you don’t have a good overview of your stock you may end up using fresh produce that arrived that day, while overlooking stock from yesterday that has now spoilt. When using the FiFo method, always put the freshest products behind the old ones to keep the system working.

Cost of storage

Cost of spoilage

Loss of interest

or cash flow

Cost of excess stock

+ + =

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Photo: Broich Catering & Locations

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Stock controlProper stock control comprises minimizing both the risk of going out of stock as well as having excess stock. The theory of ‘just in time delivery’ is all about optimal delivery arrangements with suppliers.

Control of your stock starts with a comprehensive system that tells you what you have in stock and what stock (prepared and unprepared) is nearing expiry. Monitoring demand based on seasonal influences further perfects stock control.

Shelf planThe perfect shelf plan for store cupboards and refrigerators does not exist, but here’s some guidelines that will help you minimize cross contamination and reduce the risk of excessive food waste; whole fish, whole cuts of beef and pork, ground meats and fish, ground poultry and dairy products should all be stored separately.

Try vacuum packing your products. It extends shelf life and reduces odour so it reduces the risk of them spoiling other products

3. Mise en Place (Production kitchen)

A significant part of waste resides in labour and ingredients. During the production phase, waste occurs when ingredients are not prepared carefully (e.g. excess trimming of meat, veg, or fish) or ingredients that can actually be used are discarded (e.g. trimmings to enrich stocks and sauces). As a result, a lot of costly waste can be reduced and reused during the production stage in most kitchens.

Double jeopardy – throwing away prepared food When batches of prepped ingredients are binned, serious money is lost. Operators often forget it’s not just the cost of goods that are being thrown away; the labour cost is wasted too. So what can you do? Again, the numbers tell the tale. Smart planning will help you reduce waste costs in this phase.

Don’t over produce!Of course you don’t want to disappoint your guests by having to tell them that certain items on the buffet are sold out. However, there are smart ways to tune your mise en place to the demand of your guests. Many kitchens have a back up of ingredients that can be kept in store as an emergency.

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Get creativeWaste is an inevitable side effect of cooking. Therefore, the creative use of waste is not a new concept. Some of the world’s most famous dishes originate from attempts to reuse waste. Paella, potato salad and haggis were all created to utilise by-products.

Here are some ideas:

• Be creative with vegetable trimmings to make tasty soups

• Use trimmings to create tasty starters, e.g. pork and chicken trimmings can be turned into pâtés and terrines

• Turn excess produce into chutneys, pickles and jams

• Flash freeze leftover grapes or berries on a baking sheet for use in smoothies, shakes or other recipes

Mise en Place Tips

• Sharp planning and forecasting

• Plan carefully. This optimizes your labour efficiency and reduces waste

• Avoid the temptation of exceeding par stock levels and overdoing the mise en place, even when you have spare time. It is a false economy to ‘get ahead’, as often this leads to wasted stock and effort. There are better uses of your time!

tool KitEvent Efficiency Tool

4. Preparation for transport5. Transport

A standard recipe card includes the following:• Specific ingredients with purchasing and

storage information

• Costs of ingredients and the card price calculations

• Dietary and nutrition information

• Quantities

• Ingredients grouped by sub items

• Cooking method(s) per ingredient group (i.e. dicing or tempering)

• Preparation steps

• Cooking temperatures

• Image for presentation/garnish (optional)

• Food matching (optional)

• Plate portioning

Measuring mattersUse scales to measure out ingredients as well as portions. Your recipe should always be the basisfor your selling price. It’s not unusual to be over serving by more than 40%.

Establish procedures for packaging and transportation and make sure that your team follows these guidelines in order to prepare food and equipment for safe and efficient transportation. Pay close attention to the cooling chain ensure that this is not interrupted.

tool KitRecipe Card Template

The standard recipe cardBy following the standard recipe cards, using correct measures and indgredients as well as portions, guarantees less waste and not over serving our guests. Keep in mind that the recipes are the basis of your selling prices and the guide for cost analysis. As the above paragraph explains, preparation is key. Most of these essentials can be summarized on a standard recipe card. The three main advantages of introducing standard recipe cards to your business:

1. Consistency across your menu 2. More efficient staff training3. Cost analysis

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6. Catering kitchenA too generous food offer may not seem to be an issue, but multiplied over days, months or years, the issue becomes more alarming. It’s worth remembering that over-portioned meals often end up in bin, not always in the guest’s stomach! Accurate portion control is key to reducing waste and increasing profitability.

Triple-win situationCorrecting your portion sizes might sound like a huge step to take, but on the other hand, when executed carefully, it presents three major advantages:

• It saves money

• Customers will be more satisfied

• It helps the environment and creates your own green buzz

It’s a sad fact, but the percentage of food that doesn’t reach the consumer is rising. For food service operators, aligning portion sizes is an opportunity to cut costs significantly. Plate waste will never disappear completely; however, with proper portioning and the right options on your menu it can be reduced significantly.

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Catering Kitchen Tip

• At location, prepare 80% of the mise en place.

• Then check the amount of guests.

• The last 20% can always be prepared last-minute.

• If not needed, it can be reused on another date.

Photo: Silva Carvalho Catering

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Portioning & Plate Waste Tips

• Use standard spoons/ladles with a fixed volume to portion out your dishes. Every dish should be allocated its own sauce spoon to ensure portion consistency

• Create staff awareness around waste. Tell them the real costs to the business and the negative effects on the environment. You could also reward the employee with the best waste-preventing solution of the month, quarter or year

• Offer much smaller portions for children – you don’t necessarily need to offer a separate menu just a smaller plate

• You eat with your eyes; present food creatively, cutting quantity served and potential waste. Often kitchens serve larger portions to attract custom and deliver value; sadly with eyes bigger than bellies, plates are returned unfinished. Carving meat as opposed to serving slabs, serving two fillets of battered fish as opposed to one large one, are just two examples of how you can be seen to offer value and generous portions. In these cases you retain a happy customer, but avoid plate waste

• Second helpings of side dishes: a good trick is to serve adequate portions of side dishes, and offer top-ups if required, as opposed to overdoing it in the first instance.

Selling the solutionGiving guests control over how much they want to eat is a great way to start reducing your waste. Your sales staff must fully understand the benefits of the offer for both the business and the guest. Train your staff to a guest choosing their portion size and start reducing your waste immediately.

Plate waste binAs with most improvement strategies, the most important thing is the engagement of your staff. Monitoring your plate waste is a great way of engaging your sales- and kitchen staff in the quest for less waste.

7. Plate waste

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Some Facts...

8. Disposal Waste is an inevitable side effect of any catering operation and an inevitable source of expense. Reducing the volume of waste is the only way to tackle this issue. The last stage of the three R’s discusses recycling: disposing of your waste in the most cost-effective and environmentally friendly way.

Don’t WASTE moneyThe easiest form of recycling is selective waste sorting if the logistical system is in place. Some governments encourage this with subsidies and other benefits, others get no support unless it is paid for. There are ways to make money out of your waste. Slop oil and fat can be sold to processing companies that use this waste for cattle fodder. Other organic waste can be separated and sold or donated to farmers.

Disposal Tips

• A best practice for profitable organic waste reuse is saving up your organic waste for your local farmer to pick up in exchange for a discount on the organic meat; this also makes a great selling story for your guests! As the above paragraph explains, preparation is essential. This may not be possible in some cases due to country regulations

• Many deli products come in good plastic or even glass kilner jars; save and recycle these for storage. Kilner jars can be used to display jams, honey, etc., and can even be used for chutneys and pickles which can be sold or given to guests as gifts

• Get your food waste collected for anaerobic digestion or composting, as an alternative to being sent to landfill. This can help save you money if land fill taxes are in place

Commercial recycling invariably comes at a cost to the business, so you need to be committed to the cause to do something about it; the best way being to prevent creating waste in the first place.

Many inner city councils charge waste per sack. Consider a small compactor which would pay for itself in but a few months by reducing the amount of sacks used; remember that they are charged by volume not by weight.

Waste can be created throughout the food chain, but the end user often is the one who is left with the big cost of disposal. Work with your suppliers to minimize packaging– send the delivery driver back with unwanted boxes and packaging – the message will soon get across and back down the chain… no one wants the cost of disposal, so by pushing it back along the supply chain you will be doing something positive.

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How to reduce food waste in 4 stepsFor many companies food waste is an intangible problem. The next 4 steps will make the problem understandable and provide measures to reduce it.

Thomas Luttikhold, Waste Watcher, executed his thesis for the Bachelor Business Economics for the University of Applied Science Nijmegen on ‘Waste Management’. During which, in method designed to reduce food waste, the following steps were composed. This method combines theory with practices and has been tested at one of the largest catering companies in The Netherlands. This particular research started from scratch, therefore making this method compatible for every company. Designing and testing the method took me six months. With this ‘how to’, guide companies could see results within three months.

StEP 1 Knowing the problem. Timeframe: 3 months to set a realistic baseline

The core question of this step is: what is the baseline? From where does this research take off?

• My findings

I had to start from scratch as there were no figures provided. By literally watching the waste, I succeeded to track down how waste occurred. Giving the problem a ‘body’ by determining figures on quantity (in kg) and in value (euro).

• Results

The baseline was set at a food waste ratio between 10% and 15%. Food waste became more tangible as well, by allocating different wasted product groups.

StEP 2 Why is it a problem? Timeframe: max 2 months, depends of the depth of process

Food waste is an inefficiency on a business process. An inefficiency of 10% in the process means a loss of 10% in value. Looking at the processes will reveal inefficiencies, errors or mistakes.

• My findings:

I found out that waste already occurs before it even enters a kitchen. Waste can be made in the paperwork. The kitchen is the department with the most knowledge and experience about food. In most cases this knowledge hasn’t been used effectively due to structure of business processes. Inefficiencies occurred by not using the knowledge of the kitchen effectively.

• Results

Eliminating inefficiencies by 10%.

SPOILAGEWASTE

PrEP WASTEmISE En PLAcE

kITchEn

PrEP WASTEcATErInGkITchEn

cuSTOmEr PLATE WASTE

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StEP 3. Menu engineering. Timeframe: 1 month

Many catering companies listen to the client when structuring a menu. Therefore creating a lot of different menus with a lot of variables. Menu engineering from inside out will result in more grip and savings.

• My findings

See next page for an example of a new method of menu engineering.

• Results

Cost savings by10%, see next page.

StEP 4 Waste is food. Timeframe: 1 month, if baseline is determined

Finding the baseline of food waste also enhances the research towards the composition of food waste. Thereby determine which kind of food waste can be reduced.

• My findings

I was able to determine two different product groups, coffee sentiment and orange peels which were both accountable for 25% of the total amount of food waste.

• Results

Makes it possible to reduce 25% of the food waste and use this effectively as nutrition for another process.

Menu EngineeringThe example below shows how menu engineering can affect the value of menus. The menus and prices are based on existing menus.

This menu engineering concept is based on the economical and ecological footprint of a product. With a simple example of comparing two lunch menus which consist of three sandwiches and a piece of fruit. The new menu has been designed from inside out. Focusing on saving costs, but also providing a better ’environmental’ story. The menus below were not only measured on their financial value, but also their water footprint value, CO2 value and the amount of land needed to grow food for animal livestock. The ingredients in this case are the following ones:

Water in l per kg Co2e in kg per kg Financial value per kg

Banana 0.79 0.48 €2.10

Apple 0.82 0.55 €1.79

Bread 1.60 1.25 €4.00

Mozzarella 5.06 12.00 €9.50

Old Dutch cheese 5.06 12.00 €9.65

Parma ham 5.98 8.5 €20.10

Chicken filet 4.35 6 €13.54

Roast beef 15.41 18.00 €28.27

Tomatoes 0.24 9.10 €2.16

Ham 5.98 8.5 €20.19

mEnU A mEnU b

(existing menu) (new menu)

1 banana (100g) 1 apple (80g)

1 sandwich mozzarella tomato 1 sandwich old Dutch chees (150g bread, 30g mozzarella and 30g tomatoes) (150g bread, 30g cheese)

1 sandwich roast beef 1 sandwich Parma ham (150g bread, 30g roast beef) (150g bread,30 Parma ham)

1 sandwich ham 1 sandwich chicken filet (150g bread, 30g ham) (150g bread, 30g chicken filet)

CO2e value: 2.04kg CO2e value: 1.40kg +31.37%

Water value: 1.60 liter Water value: 1.25 liter +21.88%

Financial purchase value: €3.81 Financial purchase value: €3.24 +14.96%

Putting the focus on menu engineering and new product choices makes it possible to add value to the products and at the same time it saves costs as demostrated above. This is just one sample of a lunch menu. Can you imagine what happens if you multiply these figures with 100 and thereby simulating a realistic lunch in a catering company?

Conclusion

By following the 4 steps, the financial value of food waste can be reduced with 45%, providing insight and eventually possibilities to gain more revenues.

By following this method, you will attack the food waste from inside out, lowering the value of your waste and eventually eliminate a piece of the current amount of food waste. These steps resulted in a food waste decrease of 45%. It is realistic that these measures show results within six months.

This research initially focuses on the internal costs which can be saved. The external value of the steps (for example the menu) will create possibilities to gain more revenue. Besides the financial aspects, reducing food waste creates internal awareness against the problem. Improving the quality of labour and the ‘joy’ people have on the working floor.

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