Top Tips for Improving Your Resource Efficiency - Hospitality and Food Services

Did you know every 180 litre wheelie bin you fill with food waste costs you around £200? Multiply this by 52 weeks and that's over £10,000 a year - real money you could be saving if you did a few things differently. 

• The cost of food being wasted in the UK from the UK hospitality and food service (HaFS) sector was estimated at £2.5 billion per year in 2011, rising to £3.0 billion per year by 2016. 
• On average 21 per cent of food waste arises from spoilage; 45 per cent from food preparation and 34 per cent from consumer plates. 
• The total amount of waste, including food, packaging and other non-food waste, produced each year at HaFS outlets is 2.87 million tonnes, of which 46 per cent is recycled, sent to anaerobic digestion (AD) or composted. 
• Practical tips for improving your resource efficiency and cutting costs include: 
  • Consider asking suppliers to deliver products in returnable packaging. Re-use materials such as bubble wrap, boxes, pallets and crates for regular deliveries. Review stock management and food delivery processes for food items with a short shelf life. This can be a simple way to reduce spoilage waste. 
  • Instil a switch–off culture in the kitchen and ensure that the correct size pans and ovens are used and don’t preheat ovens longer than necessary. 
  • Train staff on how to prevent waste in their work area. Can you find ways to prevent food waste by improving menu planning, leaving the peels on foods, adjusting portion sizes, through stock control or introducing doggy bags? 
  • Ask suppliers to delivery products in returnable packaging. 
  • Try and source supplies locally and when delivering and see if you can reduce the number of journeys by maximising loads and effective route planning. 
  • Ensure your packaging is designed to be re-use or recycled and that components can be easily separated to promote segregated collections of recycled materials. 
  • Installing taps that are self-closing or with infrared sensors will reduce water use and improve hygiene 
  • When buying new equipment ensure water and energy efficient products are purchased and correctly installed. Many of these products now carry the ‘Water Label’ to help you easily compare the water efficiency of products. 
• Remember that catering waste cannot be fed to farm animals am must be disposed of correctly through licensed and approved facilities. 
• Waste cooking oils should be stored properly to avoid spills and collected only by authorised collection companies. 
• Consider the waste hierarchy. You should seek to reduce waste as a priority and dispose to landfill only as a last resort after donation, composting or anaerobic digestion. 
• WRAP has produced a series of information sheets to support businesses in the hospitality and food service sector in taking action on waste. For more information visit: http://www.wrap.org.uk/content/taking-action-waste-information-sheets. 
• For on-line resources and guides visit WRAP’s Hospitality and Food Service Online Resource Centre at http://hafsva.wrap.org.uk/home