5 Steps to Cutting Food Waste from Your Kitchen
August 15, 2017Food waste is a problem around the world.
Taking steps to prevent food waste in your kitchen doesn’t just make your restaurant more morally strong; it can also help you save money on ingredients and attract more customers. Here are some steps you can take to reduce food waste in your kitchen.
1. Track Your Food Waste
Tracking is the first step because it shows you whether you are making progress on reducing your waste. It also helps you to find out where the waste is coming from. Create a team that specifically looks for food waste at the end of each day. Also ask staff members to take notice of where the most food waste they see is coming from.
Your team is your best asset.
2. Educate Your Staff
You know how we said your team is your best asset? Well, they can’t be your best asset if they don’t know what is going on or how they can help. Educating your staff on the benefits of reducing food waste and what they can do to help will get them ready to be a part of the operation to cut your food waste.
3. Start Composting
Composting turns food waste into healthy soil additive. Many cities have started programs where residents and restaurants alike can compost. You simply separate all your food waste and send it to a compost facility. If your city doesn’t offer it, there are private companies and farms that will accept food waste to help them create fertile soil.
Composting allows your food waste to go towards creating something productive.
4. Incorporate Leftover Food in Meals
If you find you have a bunch of vegetables left over during the day, consider throwing them into a soup and serving it as a special. Adding some flexibility to your menu items can also give you the freedom to use foods that otherwise might end up in the trash. For example, having a salad on your menu that includes “seasonal vegetables” allows for different variations of the same menu item, allowing you to get more out of your kitchen ingredients.
5. Measure Types of Food
Sure, you have food waste, but what kind of food waste do you have? Is it lettuce scraps? Unused pasta? Knowing what type of foods you have left after a day of hard cooking lets you know what you can do with it. Is it food you could incorporate into other meals? Is it inedible and needs to be composted? Is it something you could provide to those who are homeless?
By measuring your food waste and separating it, you can determine what needs to be done.
Properly reducing and reusing food waste will help your restaurant become more sustainable. It will also attract the crowd of diners that appreciates the fact you are doing your best to help the environment.
Kitchen Equipment: Choosing the Right Cutting Board
Every kitchen, from a food truck to a large restaurant, needs cutting boards. From vegetables to bread to meat and fish, your chefs and cooks have to chop things every day. Have you put a lot of thought into this important piece of kitchen equipment? Like many other...
Catering to Generation Z
As time marches on, we continue to have new generations arising behind the ones we’ve already named. Most recently everyone has been focused on Millennials, whose tech-savvy and focus on experiences over things have shifted the face of every industry. Now, there’s a...
4 Ways to Keep Your Restaurant Employees Engaged
You can have everything you need to run an amazing restaurant – a great menu, incredible chef, the best location, perfect pricing, and top-of-the-line kitchen equipment. But even with all of that, you won’t succeed if your employees are disengaged and unprofessional....
Kitchen Fun : Food and the Oscars
Hollywood’s biggest night was February 24th, 2019, and was it ever a show. There were stars, glitz, glamour, and amazing outfits everywhere. There were also cameras catching every moment, from the red carpet to the after-parties. What happened at the show and after...
4 Keys to Successful Commercial Kitchen Design
If you’re opening a new restaurant or renovating your existing kitchen, you probably already have some ideas about how it should look. However, it’s important to look beyond your own ideas and understand the keys to good design in general. This will help you...
Bring Together Your Back and Front of House
Does your restaurant feel like a simmering battle between the back of house (BOH) and front of house (FOH)? Or do both units get along famously? If your restaurant is like many, you find yourself somewhere in the middle. Rarely do you have an all-out war, but...
Commercial Kitchen Fun: Cooking With Mustard
One of the things that make owning a restaurant so fun is the ability to be creative with your menu. With the help of your chef and cooks, you can come up with some really fun dishes to serve. To get your imagination going, we’re going to share some fun dishes that...
Drive Traffic to Your Restaurant From Instagram
You have a lot of restaurant equipment that you need to make your location run smoothly. You might think about your point-of-sale system, refrigeration units, cooking equipment, and more. But what about Instagram? That’s right, a social media platform can be one of...
Handling Theft in Your Convenience Store
Running a convenience store is challenging to say the least. You need to staff it, but not with too many people. Then again, too few and you have a lot of problems – including theft. There are three groups that can be responsible for product and money loss in your...
Kitchen Equipment Spotlight: How Clean is Your Coffee Pot?
If you were going to rank kitchen equipment based on how much work it does, the humble coffee pot has to be near the top. In almost every restaurant, people order coffee with their meal or dessert. The problem is that because the coffee pot is working so hard, it...
Should You Add a Food Truck to Your Restaurant?
If your restaurant is doing well, you might be thinking about opening a second location. After all, that’s usually the next step when it’s time to expand, right? Before you jump in, though, consider another option. Maybe having a food truck would be a better choice....
Kitchen Equipment Spotlight: How to Maintain a Commercial Freezer
Your commercial freezer can be a lifeline for your restaurant. Safe food storage is vital, and a high-quality freezer is essential kitchen equipment. However, a freezer is only as good as the maintenance that goes into it. Without proper care, your freezer will become...
Take Advantage of Your Customer’s Technology
Some restaurant owners hate seeing customers snapping photos of food – it means that the food isn’t eaten at its best, and sometimes it’s a sign of a table that’s going to be slow to turn over. Then there are other owners and managers who see an opportunity. The truth...
How to Reduce Turnover at Your Restaurant
Having the right employees can make or break your restaurant. You can have the best food and kitchen supplies, but tension in the back of the house can cause delays, poor morale, and even the loss of key staff. You can have a beautiful dining room, but surly wait...
Should Your Commercial Kitchen Consider Catering?
As a business owner, it’s important to always be looking for new ways to grow your business. There are a lot of ways to do this, and one of the most common for many restaurants is catering. Of course, catering changes how your commercial kitchen runs a lot of the...