When over 800 million people worldwide don’t have enough food, almost one-third of all food is wasted before consumption. Nearly one-fifth of the wasted food ends in landfills that emit greenhouse gases and contribute to global warming. Hotels account for a considerable part of this food wastage.
Here are three ways to reduce hotel food waste:
Review Numbers and Establish a Plan
Before coming up with a plan to check hotel food waste, you must know the exact figure of wastage. It can be done by checking two important things: the number of people for whom food is prepared and the amount of food made every day. The wastage can be checked by keeping a food log system that would record the amount of food wasted and the reason for the waste. You can further monitor the wastage by employing someone for this specific job.
Once the figure of food wastage is known, it is essential to have a plan to minimize this through targets. Targets and caps on the procurement of food articles would help reduce hotel food waste and cut costs. You can’t achieve this without an appropriately trained and sensitized workforce.
Non-Profit Causes
You can always donate excess food to charitable organizations. This may require the identification of food banks or setting up your food bank. There may be various legal, health, and safety requirements you need to adhere to before doing this. As most of the food banking infrastructures have the facility to store large volumes of non-perishable items from donors, donating perishable food items may get tricky.
Another way may be feeding the extra food to animals. You can convert the excess food to safe animal feed. There are many non-profit organizations to which you can directly donate the excess food.
Recycling of Food
Through composting of excess food and other organic wastes, you can turn them into fertilizers. Composting can help the soil to regain its fertility and minimize the amount of solid waste in your trash. Food waste can also be used as a source of renewable energy through Anaerobic digestion. Used cooking oil can be a great source of bio-fuels too.
Wastage of food is not only unprofessional but also unethical. The hotel needs to inform its staff about how many people could have been fed with the food wasted on a single day. For more helpful ways to run your hotel efficiently and sustainably, connect with all the top California lodging professionals at the California Lodging Investment Conference. To learn more about this wonderful networking event, contact us today.
