Next week, I’m headed to the World Association of Chefs Societies‘ 2010 get together in Santiago, Chile. While there, I’ll be giving a talk on restaurant food waste.
I’m now putting together my slides and wanted to pose a question in the hope of making my presentation as inclusive as can be: What ways do you see restaurants prompting waste? And what ways have you noticed them reducing or avoiding waste?
I’m interested in particular restaurants’ strategies, but feel free to interpret the question as you see fit. If you don’t mind, please be as specific as possible–giving credit where it’s due and vice versa.
Anyway, my session takes place on Tuesday, but I’ll be there for most of the week. I’m looking forward to meeting some chefs, hearing other perspectives on the topic and experiencing some other events on the program. For example, the Wine Marathon, which is oddly scheduled for a scant 90 minutes, sounds interesting.
I’ll keep you posted on that one if you share your insights on eating out. Deal? Deal.
21 Comments
How about oversized portions as a waste-generator? Although my husband and I routinely either share plates or bring home extra food for later, not everyone does that. The typical portion in an American restaurant is outrageously large, which not only generates waste but can contribute to obesity.
I was a waitress for years and always thought a huge waster was the bread basket. Most restaurants bring it to you without asking, and not everyone wants it. They often bring 5-6 pieces for two people and stuff it full of butter pats. When the table gets cleared, the entire basket gets dumped in the trash in most places. Free refills on anything seems to be a waste. How many times have you left a full soda or coffee sitting on the table b/c the waitress filled it without asking if you wanted more?
I have seen some creative food-saving too, though. Like making croutons out of that leftover bread – which I think is kinda gross, but less wasteful. And teenage male dishwashers eating leftovers off the dirty dishes when the boss isn’t looking 😉
I’m at the point where my only dining out is “Senior Breakfast”.
Many Casinos have a “Senior Breakfast”. It is usually served with potatoes which were recently in the freezer and are then warmed in some hot grease on a grill. Most seniors I know don’t eat most of their potatoes.
Now, here is the part you may be interested in. The “Senior Breakfast” comes as a complete package. No modifications. No substitution. So to get ‘ham and egg’ senior breakfast special for $1.99 cents (Clever geezers can get comped and pay less.) one must take and waste the potatoes.
I should have explained – the cheap casino breakfasts allow no modification or substitutions because the computer won’t accept them.
So, if only wants ham and eggs with no potatoes one can order the ‘senior breakfast’ for $1.99 and accept and then waste the potatoes, or else, one might pay $2.50 for ham and another $2.50 for eggs.
Well, portion size seems to be the form of waste most obvious to the diner. I wish more restaurants would offer a half-sized portion option; not only do they allow one to order a more reasonably sized meal, but half sized meals are a better value and they promote more sampling of the menu items. To address the kitchen side of restaurant waste.. I’ve watched a good number of Gordon Ramsey’s “Kitchen Nightmares”. It seems that many restaurants end up overstocking their pantries because their menus are too broad or ambitious. I’d love to see more restaurants have a focused menu that highlights what their chefs can prepare well. I hate reading four (or more!) page menus and am always skeptical when I see one of the kitchen’s ability to produce so many dishes with tasty results.
Over the years, Souplantation has gone to smaller soup bowls and smaller sizes of their muffins and breads. That way, diners can take a little of everything, without wasting as much if they don’t like a particular item. They also started cutting their pizza into strips so that the crusts are attached to each center portion. I am not sure if that translates into less waste. I know that if I put something on my plate, I am more likely to eat it, but I imagine that many people still leave the uneaten crusts on their plates. I was still shocked when recently I saw an employee toss a good amount of ends in the trash.
Carla, I agree–oversized portions sure are a waste generator. I’m going to be interested to find out if that’s more of an American problem or whether we’ve exported that trend.
Mindy, Bread baskets–couldn’t hurt to ask if peopel want it, right? What happens when the server plops down the basket on the table of people on the Atkins or gluten-free diets?
Janes’ Kid, fascinating stuff. Even if you asked them to leave the potatoes off the plate, they can’t fulfill that request? It must be a massive operation. Volume, efficiency, etc. with no room for modifications.
So are you a ‘clever geezer?’
Bea, I like you put it on the idea of kitchens spreading themselves to thin–too ambitious.
Chard Lady, I’m afraid that many Americans, unlike you and me, don’t value their pizza bones. So before you could get crustless pieces, but now you can’t? I could see that reducing and increasing “crust waste.”
Souplantation? Really? Hadn’t heard of that chain, but is that the best name they could come up with? Even if I loved soup–which I don’t–plantations don’t really have the best connotations for me.
[Mini rant over]
We recently ate at Carraba’s, an Italian chain. We love cozze (mussels) and the broth they come with. We always leave about a 1/2 cup of broth. For the first time, a waitress encouraged us to take it home, heat it up and use the bread we were taking home to dip in it.
Instead of that, I added it to my homemade clam chowder. It was the best I’ve made in 40 years!!
So my point is, have the wait staff encourage taking home leftovers, have them tell customers how to use them, heat them up, whatever. Now if the restaurants would have recylable take home containers or encourage bring your own I’d be really happy.
I like Bellen’s point about the recyclable containers – some are made of #5 plastic which is recyclable in some areas. The styro things are awful. Among the wasteful things that some restaurants do is to offer jam, jelly, butter, ketchup and other condiments in little individual plastic containers. It’s mostly the packaging waste that irks me.
Then there are the pancake places like IHOP that put way too much butter, whipped cream and canned fruit toppings on their pancakes – it seems that most people scrape most of it off!
Some restaurants, especially the poshest ones, use lots of organic garnishes like kale and other greens and even edible flowers. Most of this stuff winds up in the garbage…what a waste.
The biggest problem I see is portion sizes. I understand that Americans in particular want to “get my money’s worth” when we eat out, but I see three possible solutions to the portion problem:
1. Reduce portions (probably the least likely).
2. Offer half orders in addition to full orders.
3. Instruct servers to OFFER a to-go box when the server sees the patrons are winding down (or for items that are routinely brought out but often not eaten, but which must be thrown away w/ each table).
None of these will eliminate over-portion waste, but perhaps they could reduce it.
Another thing that might be good would be if restaurants implemented a composting service. By that, I mean to contract a composting service to come pick up their food waste for composting.
Oh, also, places could offer (maybe on their websites?) ideas and tips for using up leftovers – for example, in the pizza crust thing above, one could use those crusts to bake a strata, or a person could treat them like breadsticks and munch on them w/ some marinara (which is what I do).
Oh, and maybe also they could shrink the salad sizes that are free w/ the meal. Eating the salad reduces what you can eat of your entree, so by making the salad smaller you can increase entree consumption and reduce portions without upsetting the customer.
Some things I see as wasteful in restaurants
1. Restaraunts need to get rid of Styrofoam to-go boxes and cups.
2. Signage and paper advertising can be wasteful.
3. Throwing away food instead of getting it to food banks. This is such a shame.
Some things I see as beneficial
1. The packaging of items is for bulk consumption rather than individual… this decreases waste.
2. The nature of business makes companies adopt practices that reduce cost. As soon as the industries can show a reduction in costs, the businesses will jump on the bandwagon.
Dee Dee, Wait–kale is edible? Just kidding. When I once wrote about a barbecue contest where a kale garnish was an essential component of the plate presented to judges. Sheesh.
Bellen and Allie, I like the idea you both mention of having restaurants–either through waiters or web sites–give tips on how to use leftovers.
Also, the idea of having waiters encourage doggie bagging is huge. If taking leftovers home becomes the norm, that will really help.
Of course, it will help the most if that’s done in paper/recyclable containers (NOT styrofoam), as Ben and Bellen mentioned.
Allie, there has been a mini movement to offer smaller portions. Many chains, notably TGI Friday’s, now have smaller versions for a cheaper price. About time, too! One size fits all–poorly.
Still chewing on Allie’s ‘make free salads smaller suggestion.’ What do others think?
As she said, it’d only work with free salads included in the price of the meal.
1. Overly large portions. Last time I was at the Cheesecake Factory my lunch could have served three persons. Note to restaurants: reducing the portion by 50% but charging only $1 less doesn’t help.
2. Bringing food that the customer hasn’t asked for. Bread, butter, and glasses of water are the most common. The bread and butter lead to wasted food, the glasses to wasted water and dishwashing. In Tex-Mex restaurants it’s often beans and rice with a dish, in Chinese places it’s white rice. FYI, I’m not including the little treats that fancy restarants sometimes send out.
3. Having inadequate containers (styro clamshells don’t work for Tex-Mex beans and rice) and snobby attitudes to takeout.
4. Bringing another cup for a beverage refill instead of refilling the cup you have. Some places compound the waste by removing the cup you have before it’s empty.
5. Bread bowls. ‘Nuf sed.
All this is what the customer sees. There’s a whole nother conversation to have about what goes on in the kitchen.
A la carte menus, in the long run, would probably result in less wasted food if (and it’s a big if) portions are appropriate sizes and customers don’t over-order. I’m thinking of WilliamB’s comment about beans and rice at TexMex restaurants – there’s always too much, and even if you take it home, it’s not so appetizing the next day. Just give me the enchilada, maybe with a tiny spoonful of rice and beans.
WilliamB–did you check out Friday’s post before writing ‘bread bowls’ or were great minds just thinking alike??
I was just talking with a chef about free bread–when and how much is supposed to be brought. He was lamenting how his restuarant used to give a quarter loaf, enabling the patron to fill up on that and a bowl of soup. Lost sales for the eatery.
On a separate facet, we agreed that asking a simple ‘Would you like some bread?’ would be wise to avoid the waste. Same goes for other freebies–white rice and the chips n salsa. Perhaps charging a nominal fee for these items would help separate those who wanted to eat them from those who do so just because it’s there (and they don’t want it to go to waste).
A pet peeve of mine is when the waiter plops down another bowl of free chips (that are impossible to stop munching on), especially when you’ve not even finished the first. Same goes for the unrequested free refill in another glass.
I disagree on rice and beans, though. That’s almost always specified on the menu–at least where I live–and enjoyed by yours truly.
When I was growing up, my mother carried baggies in her purse, and we were always embarrassed when she’d coyly reach for one in her purse under the table. I think the two main problems are 1) the stigma of taking a small amount home such as leftover bread and 2) the waste of plastics or styrofoam to transport it, especially for a small amount. I have become sickened by our use of plastics, and I think there needs to be some major advertising campaigns to call attention to it. Most people are surprisingly ignorant on the subject of plastics and its effects on landfills and ocean degradation.
I complain about San Francisco sometimes (having grown up in upstate New York) but they are really on top of a lot of these things in their restaurants– every place offers to-go containers that are either recyclable (plastic, stamped with the recycle logo) or compostable (cardboard or corn starch). I can’t remember the last time I saw styrofoam anywhere. At Asian restaurants, you must specifically request rice with your dish, and at most places you must request beverage refills, extra bread, etc. At fast food places, you must request little packets of hot sauce, mustard, etc, else they won’t give them to you.
There are also more and more restaurants boasting that they use only local produce, or as much as possible, in their meals, which cuts down on both loads of waste (as they have to buy tighter) and transportation emissions.
And finally – and most noticeably different from other cities – every restaurant here composts. Some casual places (like pizzerias) even have the compost bin right near the trash and recyclables bins by the door, so patrons can dispose of their own waste properly.
Great website, I have you bookmarked now!
Oh also, how could I forget? There are services here that will come to your restaurant and drain your used cooking oil for use as automotive fuel– you can often spot a green van pulled up to the curb, much like a carpet cleaner, with a huge accordion hose leading inside to the kitchen.
Jonathan – Bread bowl credit goes to you, I don’t think I would have remembered them otherwise. They’re terrible, aren’t they? Both waistwise and wastewise.
I like Tex-Mex beans and rice, even the next day, and always take them home. But a quick look around me at the restaurant shows I’m the exception. I’m with you on the second bowl of chips, and especially the part about not being able to stop munching on.
I think a $.25 fee for rice, the second bowl of chips (I don’t think it would fly for the first bowl), and asking for bread would be a great start. Having waited tables, I know that asking then bringing is more than twice the work (two trips to the table, two opportunities to be interrupted, an additional opportunity for the customer to think service has been delayed) but I’m for asking first anyway.
I realize there will always be some plate waste. Restaurants & customers want the plate to look nice: some carrot, some lettuce, a tomato, the color of beans & mex rice, salsa fresca, etc.
I do wish kitchens would compost. I drool at the thought of all those inputs that could go into my compost pile instead of the trash.
Hi, Jonathan. I know it’s a bit late, but I just stumbled across your site now.
When I used to work at McDonald’s (2001-2005) we always threw out a lot of food. When I first started there we used to keep a “buffer” of two of each popular sandwich (Big Mac, Quarter Pounder, cheeseburger, McChicken) ready in the warmer. They were good for 10 minutes and then we had to throw them out (of course sometimes we just changed the timers), but thankfully they moved towards making them only after being ordered.
However, thre was still a lot of waste generated by having to have the patties cooked in advance. Each tray had a timer of 20 minutes or so depending on the product and was supposed to be thrown out when the timer beeped. And the fries are only good for 7 minutes.
The restaurant did a good job at determining how many of each product to have ready during certain times and on certain days. Each area had charts posted of how much to have prepared. Clearly this was an issue of reducing the cost more than reducing wastefulness.