— By Frenchie Audette —
Why tackling wasted food is good for sustainability — and good for business.
Every year, the foodservice industry contributes a staggering amount of waste to U.S. landfills. Consumer-facing businesses are responsible for 20% of all wasted food, with restaurants accounting for nearly half of that. That’s almost 9 tons of food waste annually. And 70% of that waste comes from plate waste — what’s left uneaten on customers’ plates.
This all points to the unique challenge that the foodservice industry faces when dealing with wasted food, which is generated at every point in the lifecycle of food — from sourcing to preparation, to what’s left on the guest’s plates.
The potential business impact of poor wasted food management is significant. Yet, foodservice managers are often operating with limited resources and time, which can make it difficult to prioritize sustainable practices and even more challenging to know how to implement them. From packaging and utensils to energy use and wasted food, the opportunities to become more sustainable are vast, but not all solutions are created equal. The challenge lies in finding sustainable practices that truly make an impact and align with a manager’s current business needs.
To ensure they’re taking impactful steps toward sustainability without putting an unmanageable strain on operating margins, foodservice managers should focus on four critical areas: leveraging data and technology, staying ahead of compliance and policy changes, meeting rising guest expectations and implementing sustainable solutions that can scale.
Using Data-Driven Technologies to Prevent Waste
Restaurants waste up to 10% of the food they buy and the industry generates approximately 33 pounds of wasted food per $1,000 of a restaurant’s revenue. These numbers don’t take into account the fact that wasted food is a cost that businesses pay twice — first in purchasing and handling that food, and then in paying to throw it away. Lack of insight into the amount of waste being generated and where it’s coming from is a major contributor to growing volumes of wasted food. Simply put, a foodservice business cannot manage what it does not measure.
Technology and data are core components to improving how wasted food is managed. Solutions such as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tracking can provide much-needed visibility into company operations. This kind of insight makes it possible to track site-specific wasted food data to analyze how and why food is wasted. In doing so, a restaurant is empowered to identify opportunities and implement strategies to prevent wasted food.
Improved tracking of wasted food through implementing effective technology solutions could unlock a $3 billion economic opportunity for the foodservice industry annually. This would have the potential to reduce up to 1.05 million tons of wasted food, reduce up to 5.76 million metric tons of CO2 emissions, save up to 478 billion gallons of water, and ultimately create more than 1,500 jobs industry-wide.
Considering Organic Waste Regulations & Compliance
Data and technology are one important piece of the solution for foodservice to better manage wasted food. But, consideration of emerging legislation and regulations at the local, state and federal levels is critical as well. States like California and Washington have enacted legislation for organic waste management that employs a mix of incentives and penalties to recover donatable food and prevent non-donatable food from reaching landfills. For example, in the case of California’s Senate Bill 1383 (SB 1383), non-compliance can result in financial penalties that escalate with each subsequent violation — costing a business up to $100 with the first violation, increasing to $500 with the third and any subsequent violations per location. These penalties can quickly add up and pose a major financial burden.
To comply with emerging legislation and meet sustainability goals, foodservice businesses need to first understand and educate. Tools like the Food Waste Legislative Tracker are a good start. In addition, foodservice businesses need to look for wasted food management solutions that can provide visibility into both the volume and type of food being wasted, as well as diversion methods that are sustainable on a commercial scale, such as anaerobic digestion. Solutions like these will help bring these businesses closer to complying with relevant regulations.
Delivering on Consumer Demands for Sustainability
Consumers once prioritized how food was grown and sourced as the main opportunity for sustainability. But, waste has emerged a major concern for consumers as well. In this survey. 51% of respondents said seeing large amounts of wasted food frustrates them and impacts their decision to order from that restaurant again. 73% of respondents wanted more accurate portion sizes to avoid wasted food and 68% said takeaway restaurants should have practices in place to avoid unnecessary wasted food. These are clear indicators that sustainable wasted food management isn’t just better for the environment, it makes good business sense.
Another sustainable practice consumers view favorably is changing the way unsold or uneaten food is managed through prioritizing donations. When food is less visually appealing or doesn’t align with a businesses’ standards to be sold, it can be thrown out — even though it’s perfectly safe to eat. Rather than wasting it, foodservice managers can work with a local food bank or partner to establish a diversion program that recovers edible food and donates it to those in need. This benefits the local community where the business operates, but also benefits the business by reducing its waste volume and creating goodwill among local customers.
Choosing the Right Scalable Solutions
Not all waste diversion methods are created equal. It’s important to consider those with the potential for significant longer term impact. Composting organic waste can be effective for some small business restaurants, but it’s not feasible for all, and there are significant challenges to scaling compost efforts commercially. Some of the most common hurdles can be managing moisture levels and preventing contamination from food packaging. Because of this, anaerobic digestion is the preferred alternative for managing wasted food on a commercial scale.
Anaerobic digestion (AD) technology is a process through which bacteria break down organic matter in the absence of oxygen. AD can produce environmentally beneficial byproducts in the form of biogas that can be used as renewable energy to reduce demand for fossil fuels, and it can also produce beneficial digestate as an agricultural input such as fertilizer.
In 2023, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) updated its Food Recovery Hierarchy with a new model: the Wasted Food Scale. The scale assesses and ranks different waste food management practices based on environmental impact and circularity. Anaerobic digestion is the strongest performing pathway after Prevention and Feeding Others, making it an ideal diversion tactic for foodservice businesses to consider.
Driving Business Value Through Sustainable Wasted Food Management
The foodservice industry should look to sustainable wasted food management solutions that align with their goals, provide more immediate and significant reductions to carbon footprint, and offer low impact to revenue margins.
For communities, better wasted food management can reduce environmental impact and provide food to local community members in need. For your business, implementing the right wasted food management solutions can provide valuable data and insights that improve operations and reduce waste costs, ensure compliance with organic waste regulations and policies, and foster loyalty from consumers who support responsible business practices. That’s a sustainability win-win for your business and your community.
— Frenchie Audette is vice president of food service for Divert, Inc., an impact technology company on a mission to Protect the Value of Food™. Founded in 2007, the company creates advanced technologies and sustainable infrastructure to eliminate wasted food, driving social and environmental impact. Divert provides an end-to-end solution that leverages data to prevent waste, facilitates edible food recovery to serve communities in need, and converts wasted food into renewable energy.