Food Waste Intelligence

(Hint: It's more than just the cost of the food getting trashed.) Wasted food is wasted money. As a foodservice operator, you are very aware of this connection. But we’re not just talking about the cost of the food that you’re throwing away. Food cost is certainly a major factor, but it doesn’t stop there—you’re paying for that “waste” many times over. In fact, five times by our calculation. Here’s the cold hard truth about the cost of that pan of rosemary chicken headed for the waste bin:

You measure your foodservice operation’s health by looking at a range of key metrics: quality, safety, sanitation and profit. But what about food waste? Is that on your daily “scoreboard” as a measure of success? For most, it’s missing.

We all know employees are critical to our success, influencing perceptions of our brand, controlling the quality of our food and defining the overall guest experience. But often operators struggle with staff engagement, finding it difficult to get people to tune in. This isn’t just unfortunate, it’s dangerous.

Food waste: for some kitchens, it’s considered a four-letter word. It’s a topic that people avoid talking about, even if it means ignoring an elephant in the room. For other operations, food waste represents an opportunity for them to do better, save money and help the environment.

We’ve shared with our readers that “food waste management” is one of the top 10 culinary trends for 2015 according to the National Restaurant Association (NRA) report, but as a category this is a pretty broad topic. So what do we expect to see people doing differently in 2015 as it relates to food waste management? In this month's focus article, I delve deeper into four specific trends that we are already seeing emerge across the industry, and which I believe will gain steam throughout the year.