
HomeBiogas 2021 Impact & ESG Report
With a wide portfolio of products, HomeBiogas helps businesses achieve Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Criteria, enabling them to demonstrate their commitment to safeguard the environment.
Read MoreRestaurants throw away tons of food annually. While zero waste is still impossible in this industry, various methods can be used to minimize the impact of this waste on the environment and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As more brands aim to zero net emissions by 2050, restaurant waste management becomes essential to achieving this goal.
Restaurants are responsible for 40% of the food waste produced annually — approximately 16 million tons of food lost. This practice has a significant environmental and economic impact:
Whenever a restaurant discards food, all the inputs used in its production, processing, transportation, preparation, and storage will also go to waste. Furthermore, if all this food ends up in landfills, it emits methane, which has more than 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide over the first 20 years.
On the other hand, a restaurant that appropriately manages its food waste can see a series of long- and short-term benefits:
1. Understand where waste comes from
The first step toward proper waste disposal in restaurants is understanding how much food you waste regularly. This way, you can determine how much of it is unavoidable (customer rejections) and what can be prevented (cooking errors, spills, overproduction). Conduct an audit to get clear data on how much food you can save without impacting the quality of your service or causing unnecessary delays.
2. Plan food shopping
Ensure you only buy the ingredients your staff needs in a given time frame. “Stocking up” can be tempting, especially when you get a reasonable product price, but much of the extra food will spoil in storage — especially the less-in-demand food items.
Buying in bulk is profitable only when you can store food properly, meaning that you have the capacity and the right conditions for each item. Otherwise, what you might be saving will eventually go to waste, impacting overall costs, the restaurant’s profitability, and the environment.
3. Organize storage spaces
Tidy product storage areas make it easy to monitor ingredients and keep an eye on expiration dates. The more diverse your food and beverage offer is, the higher the necessity to keep everything organized. It’s easier said than done, but tidiness is vital to effective inventory management, food waste control, and overall cleanliness.
4. Ensure your restaurant inventory includes a food waste list
Effective inventory helps you keep track of the foods you have on hand and what went to waste. On the one hand, you get a detailed list of the foods in each storage area with expiration dates so your staff can prevent foods from going to waste.
On the other hand, knowing what was thrown out can help you evaluate your restaurant’s needs and improve your shopping strategy. Effective inventory control makes ordering ingredients on par levels easy. This way, you can only order the minimum of inventory required to keep demand stable while allowing for a small margin of error to account.
5. Practice flexible inventory management
Order more of an ingredient when needed instead of placing standard orders at regular intervals. The practice takes more effort and requires dedicated software to track inventory and orders, but it’s well worth it in terms of reducing food waste.
Flexible inventory management positively impacts your carbon footprint and profitability. You get to keep an eye on your restaurant’s inventory, so you can better understand demand and identify new ways to increase profit margins in the long run.
6. Implement the “First In, First Out” Rule
The “First In, First Out” (FIFO) rule is an effective method to keep your food from spoiling before you can use it. When new supplies arrive, you place them behind your existing stock to ensure older items are used first.
This inventory management system makes older stock easily accessible, so your employees retrieve the right ingredients fast when they go to the storeroom to pick up food items. The method can be time-consuming when stocking a new delivery, but it’s likely to save you money in the long run and support an effective food waste management method.
7. Create special offers to manage surplus
Whenever you have ingredients that must be used up quickly, create special menu items that incorporate those ingredients. Alternatively, you can be creative with regular dishes that allow you to use up fresh and perishable ingredients, such as vegetables or fruits.
Prevention only fixes part of the problem. What can you do about unavoidable waste when running a restaurant?
Start by building a waste management plan for restaurants to recycle food waste and convert it into soil, fuel, or energy. For instance, oils and fats, such as fryer oil, can be used to produce biodiesel and other goods. Restaurant managers can contact a local manufacturer or biodiesel clubs and provide them with fryer oil as feedstock. On the other hand, food scraps and compostable packaging can be turned into compost to support agriculture or landscaping. Collaborating with a local facility that needs organic waste to produce compost or biogas can be a cost-effective way to deal with food scraps.
Effective food waste management includes five simple steps:
Restaurant managers can streamline waste management if they know where to look for solutions. As the world embraces cleaner, greener waste management practices, various waste recycling programs can support sustainable restaurant operations.
Food scraps make excellent organic matter for compost, a substance rich in essential ingredients like nitrogen, carbon, and water. Instead of treating organic waste as trash and disposing of it in nature, restaurants can turn food waste into a valuable resource.
Composting uses leftovers in an environmentally responsible manner, being a cost-effective method for reducing the amount of garbage sent to landfills and recycling it into a valuable soil amendment.
Whether restaurants build small-scale composting systems or partner with large-scale entities, the results can significantly impact the business. As many as 83% of consumers wish restaurants to implement environment-friendly practices, and many are willing to pay more to support sustainable businesses.
Moreover, recycling and composting food waste is a way to reduce your restaurant’s carbon footprint, affecting the health and safety of the entire community.
The HomeBiogas Pro System offers a comprehensive and user-friendly solution for managing organic restaurant waste seamlessly integrated into existing kitchen infrastructures. It streamlines kitchen waste management and enables restaurant owners interested in circular economy benefits. This commercial system uses anaerobic digestion to transform waste into energy — the more food waste the system digests, the more energy it will produce.
HomeBiogas solutions aim to reduce energy costs, waste management challenges, and water heating expenses while producing 100% organic fertilizer to boost food production in agriculture. The system is completely sealed, ensuring no unpleasant odors are produced. Additionally, it’s certified to meet both ISO (International Organization for Standardization) 23590 and CE mark standards for biogas systems, making it a safe and viable option for restaurants of all sizes in various locations.
Food waste management is complicated, involving multiple factors, from supply chains to proper waste disposal solutions. However, a lack of action in this area significantly impacts the environment, revenue, and overall quality of life.
Restaurant owners and managers undertake significant efforts to effectively address food waste issues in restaurants. The motivation to take action is stronger than ever — when reducing food waste, restaurants save money, reduce their carbon footprint, and increase customer loyalty.
With a wide portfolio of products, HomeBiogas helps businesses achieve Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Criteria, enabling them to demonstrate their commitment to safeguard the environment.
Read MoreAt HomeBiogas, we are taking responsibility for our planet together with our customers. They are visionaries, changemakers and inspiring people creating a positive future for us all. We are thankful to our wonderfully courageous customers, and we are proud to share their stories.
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