EP Insights & Action

Is zero waste really possible?
Paul Wright, Project Director at Tricon explores if it’s feasible to achieve “zero waste”
in a staff restaurant and to what extent this objective is influenced by client policy.
Around 50% of all food produced on the planet never gets eaten.
The waste hierarchy provides
an international recognised
framework for waste management.
Top priority is given to preventing
waste in the first place followed by re-use,
recycling, recovery and disposal. Thus “zero
waste”, which encompasses elimination or
re-use, is considered preferable to recycling
or recovery. A number of chefs are opening
restaurants pioneering the concept of “zero
waste” operations, utilising full nose to
tail menu planning. Notable examples are
Massimo Bottura, of Osteria Franscescana
in Modena, Italy and Dan Barber of Blue
Hill in New York City. This got us thinking;
is it feasible to achieve “zero waste” in a staff
restaurant and to what extent this objective is
influenced by client policy?
The three principle waste generating areas
are food, packaging and disposables. Firstly,
food waste. This can be split into “production
waste” resulting from food preparation and
cooking activities including left-over food,
and “plate waste”, essentially food served but
not fully consumed by the customer. Chefs,
such as Massimo Bottura, will butcher a
whole animal carcass on-site and use every
constituent part in a dish. This is clearly not
a realistic option for a staff restaurant as
not many employees would buy-in to eating
brains or eyeballs in the interests of achieving
zero waste. Therefore, the use of prepared
fresh ingredients, such as pre-portioned
meat and peeled vegetables is a better (and
commonly used) approach. However, zero
waste should not be restricted to the on-site
activities only but should extend down
through the supply chain. Consequently,
there is a requirement to ensure suppliers
are also delivering a zero waste commitment.
There’s a poultry processing plant where the
last thing you see are pairs of feet dangling
from an overhead tracking on their way to
China. Every part of the bird is used (but
maybe avoid the chicken nuggets!).
Production waste is also influenced
by menu range and choice. The broader
the menu range and the greater the daily
variety, the higher the potential for food
waste (and additional cost!). We often see
menus that offer different dishes every
day for an extended period. We’ve seen a
hospitality menu that included over 100
different ingredients (including 10 varieties
of bread) just for the working breakfast and
lunch menus. Compare this to a successful
commercial restaurant where a limited range
of dishes are produced using the optimum
30 | Insights & Action | October 2017