Lot of food items are wasted out of the amount produced in agriculture farm/ orchards to the amount consumed. Wastage may be during harvesting, food processing, transporting at various stages, spoilage etc.
In your opinion, what methods & techniques may be useful to reduce wastage of the food at various stages?
Running a foodservice operation requires a lot of thinking. You have to order ingredients on time, balance your finances, and manage your staff amidst a world of other concerns. As important as it is to consider what food you’re making, it’s equally important to think about what happens to food that’s left uneaten. According to Feeding America, America produces an estimated 70 billion tons of food waste each year.
This is something your customers care about, as demonstrated by food waste statistics. A study by Unilever, revealed that 72% of U.S. diners said that they care about how food waste is handled. 47% are concerned enough that they would be willing to spend more money to eat at a place that actively tries to reduce its food waste production. This makes it all the more important to find ways of reducing food waste in America.
What is a Food Waste Audit?
The first step to reducing waste is to find out how much you’re wasting to begin with and what kind of waste your establishment is producing. The primary goal of a waste audit is to identify where your operation's waste comes from, so you can then find ways to reduce it.
How to Conduct a Food Waste Audit
There are two main factors to take into account as you track your food waste. You need to consider how much food is being wasted and how many people are coming through your restaurant. By gathering data for both of these variables, you can get a better sense of what your biggest source of waste is.
Food log system
Provide your staff with a simple sheet of paper where they can keep track of what's being thrown out, why it's being thrown out, and how much is wasted. As an alternative, there are waste tracking systems like LeanPath that use a specially designed scale with touch screen terminal and computer software to track how much food you're throwing out without the hassle of a pencil and paper.
Also, be sure to keep a second log system for post-consumer waste, or food customers pay for but don’t eat. This type of waste is much more difficult to control because, ultimately, if that toddler at table 3 doesn't want the broccoli his mom ordered for him, odds are good that you're going to get it back, untouched, when they leave. Still, it's well worth evaluating what is being thrown out and how much this amounts to. Gathering as much data as feasibly possible will only help you when it comes time to evaluate the results and make changes to how your operation handles food waste.
Traffic log system
Another common tool that many restaurants use is a daily log of how much traffic the restaurant received and what the weather was like. For example, a log may show that 280 guests were served on the Friday before Christmas and the weather was 50 degrees and sunny. While this data may not seem useful right away, it’s immensely helpful when it comes to planning for the following year’s customer volume. If chefs can get a baseline of how much traffic to expect, based on the previous year’s findings, they will have a better sense of how much food to order. As years go by, this data becomes more and more valuable because the trends become clearer. Many POS systems feature daily log capabilities, so it’s definitely something to look for when you choose a POS for your business.
Seek Food Waste Solutions
Once you know what’s being wasted, talk to your staff and try to think of ways to improve. What are the biggest contributors to food waste in your kitchen? Why are specific items thrown out? These are the questions that should be in the back of your mind as you look at the data.
An easy way to think about next steps is to break up your waste types into three categories:
Pre-consumer waste - food that doesn’t even leave the kitchen
Post-consumer waste - food that’s purchased by a customer, but not eaten
Disposables - things like paper goods, plastic utensils, and packaging
Next, consider the following options and determine which ways make the most sense to implement as solutions to each type of waste:
Ways to Reduce Pre-Consumer Food Waste
Pre-consumer waste is the area where you likely have the most opportunity for positive change because there are many factors within your control when it comes to ordering, storing, and prepping your ingredients as well as how you handle surplus ingredients.
Evaluate inventory - If you find that food sits around too long in storage, make sure you’re not ordering too much.
Maximize shelf life - If ingredients you need are going bad before you have a chance to use them, make sure perishables are being properly stored so that you’re not wasting ingredients before they are even cooked.
Find ways of repurposing ingredients - Try making day-old bread into croutons, or put leftover turkey meat into a soup. Similarly, an innovative chef will be able to transform excess ingredients into a daily special.
https://www.webstaurantstore.com/article/140/how-to-reduce-waste-in-restaurants.html
Good question. I think by increase advantage and benefits of reduce wastage of food to humanity. Also try link benifits of this to poor people food deficiencies gap.
Pre-planning for storage before harvesting & Usage of good, well ventilated and strong Packing material ll save the food items during transportation. During Transportation, refrigeration containers can be used.
Awareness/Education may be the key to effective management of food products
I think there must be a system of making sure that we harvest exactly what is needed for that particular time. The value chain must be studied and carefully documented
Different means of preservations based on the items to be harvested should be employed when the stage is set for harvest.
Thanks a lot Dr Koli and Dr Jumoke for sharing your valuable contribution.
I saw a technique used in an all-you-can-eat restaurant. In order to minimize waste (people taking too much food and then throwing some or most of it away) they have a sign saying that they will be charged for uneaten food. I think some sort of system like this should be implemented at all stages of the food supply process. Composting has become popular to deal with waste from vegetable peelings, egg shells, etc. Also multiple applications should be developed for a certain food product - for example if there is too much flour produced or is in storage, can one put that to use as a filler in some other application? One has to brain storm and come up with various Plan B's.
Through the use of refrigerated containers for the possibility of conservation for a longer period as well as planning techniques better than to maintain the quantity to reduce waste ...
Greetings
Food losses not only includes post harvest losses, but also includes post purchase losses, i.e. foods purchased by affluent people who eventually don't eat. It needs to be reduce to feed ever increasing population. Please read "Parfitt, Julian, Mark Barthel, and Sarah Macnaughton. "Food waste within food supply chains: quantification and potential for change to 2050." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences 365.1554 (2010): 3065-3081."
Pre-harvest planning, good harvesting and postharvest practices (including packing, storage and transportation), new food product development/value addition and adoption of best processing and preservation techniques including good manufacturing practices are some the methods that could be employed in tackling food wastage at various stages.
Running a foodservice operation requires a lot of thinking. You have to order ingredients on time, balance your finances, and manage your staff amidst a world of other concerns. As important as it is to consider what food you’re making, it’s equally important to think about what happens to food that’s left uneaten. According to Feeding America, America produces an estimated 70 billion tons of food waste each year.
This is something your customers care about, as demonstrated by food waste statistics. A study by Unilever, revealed that 72% of U.S. diners said that they care about how food waste is handled. 47% are concerned enough that they would be willing to spend more money to eat at a place that actively tries to reduce its food waste production. This makes it all the more important to find ways of reducing food waste in America.
What is a Food Waste Audit?
The first step to reducing waste is to find out how much you’re wasting to begin with and what kind of waste your establishment is producing. The primary goal of a waste audit is to identify where your operation's waste comes from, so you can then find ways to reduce it.
How to Conduct a Food Waste Audit
There are two main factors to take into account as you track your food waste. You need to consider how much food is being wasted and how many people are coming through your restaurant. By gathering data for both of these variables, you can get a better sense of what your biggest source of waste is.
Food log system
Provide your staff with a simple sheet of paper where they can keep track of what's being thrown out, why it's being thrown out, and how much is wasted. As an alternative, there are waste tracking systems like LeanPath that use a specially designed scale with touch screen terminal and computer software to track how much food you're throwing out without the hassle of a pencil and paper.
Also, be sure to keep a second log system for post-consumer waste, or food customers pay for but don’t eat. This type of waste is much more difficult to control because, ultimately, if that toddler at table 3 doesn't want the broccoli his mom ordered for him, odds are good that you're going to get it back, untouched, when they leave. Still, it's well worth evaluating what is being thrown out and how much this amounts to. Gathering as much data as feasibly possible will only help you when it comes time to evaluate the results and make changes to how your operation handles food waste.
Traffic log system
Another common tool that many restaurants use is a daily log of how much traffic the restaurant received and what the weather was like. For example, a log may show that 280 guests were served on the Friday before Christmas and the weather was 50 degrees and sunny. While this data may not seem useful right away, it’s immensely helpful when it comes to planning for the following year’s customer volume. If chefs can get a baseline of how much traffic to expect, based on the previous year’s findings, they will have a better sense of how much food to order. As years go by, this data becomes more and more valuable because the trends become clearer. Many POS systems feature daily log capabilities, so it’s definitely something to look for when you choose a POS for your business.
Seek Food Waste Solutions
Once you know what’s being wasted, talk to your staff and try to think of ways to improve. What are the biggest contributors to food waste in your kitchen? Why are specific items thrown out? These are the questions that should be in the back of your mind as you look at the data.
An easy way to think about next steps is to break up your waste types into three categories:
Pre-consumer waste - food that doesn’t even leave the kitchen
Post-consumer waste - food that’s purchased by a customer, but not eaten
Disposables - things like paper goods, plastic utensils, and packaging
Next, consider the following options and determine which ways make the most sense to implement as solutions to each type of waste:
Ways to Reduce Pre-Consumer Food Waste
Pre-consumer waste is the area where you likely have the most opportunity for positive change because there are many factors within your control when it comes to ordering, storing, and prepping your ingredients as well as how you handle surplus ingredients.
Evaluate inventory - If you find that food sits around too long in storage, make sure you’re not ordering too much.
Maximize shelf life - If ingredients you need are going bad before you have a chance to use them, make sure perishables are being properly stored so that you’re not wasting ingredients before they are even cooked.
Find ways of repurposing ingredients - Try making day-old bread into croutons, or put leftover turkey meat into a soup. Similarly, an innovative chef will be able to transform excess ingredients into a daily special.
https://www.webstaurantstore.com/article/140/how-to-reduce-waste-in-restaurants.html
Thanks a lot Dr Srini, Dr Samy, Dr Abu, Dr Sarafa, Dr Mohammed and Dr Zainab for sharing your valuable contribution.
Lot of raw food such as wheat, rice, pulses etc get wasted during storage in warehouses or lack of storage capacity.
Perishable goods such as fruits, vegetables etc get spoiled due to lack of adequate storage, transportation facilities to the point of storage and consumption in time. In my view , researchers may like to focus on some of these important matters to reduce wastage and spoilage.
Please refer to the following article:
Lipinski, B., Hanson, C., Lomax, J., Kitinoja, L., Waite, R., & Searchinger, T. (2013). Reducing food loss and waste. World Resources Institute Working Paper, June. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Lisa_Kitinoja/publication/261759490_Creating_a_sustainable_food_future_reducing_food_losses_and_waste/links/0f3175356ccafddc66000000/Creating-a-sustainable-food-future-reducing-food-losses-and-waste.pdf
Good postharvest technologies would help. I have written a book chapter to be published soon that addresses this important issue.
I belive you have to find the root cause of some of the waste streems. Why is it considered as waste? What has been seen i Norway is that some of the waste is related to wrong quality standards as shape and size. Too small, too odd. By changing the marketing and influence the consumers to buy small potatios that cook faster, small carrots to be used as snack, buy funnier food.. Some detailers offer lower price and call it "seceond hand" vegetables, same taste just minor flaus, and thay may also contribute to reduce waste. The date for expire has to be questioned too. How large is the "safety" margins and is it necessary? Small changes in transportation and storage procedures may give large impact.
linking farmers to market is the best way to reduce post harvest losses.
El problema de las pérdidas durante todo el proceso comercial en los alimentos o más bien en todo el proceso pos cosecha además de verse como un problema tecnológico está determinado por un problema social, téngase en cuenta que en el precio de los productos comercializados está implícito el costo total del producto teniendo en cuenta los desechos los cuales se consideran con el mismo valor de producción que el producto aprovechable.
In my opinion, the improvement of planting practices would be very beneficial for the implementation of agricultural programs through the implementation of good agricultural programs. The development of packaging and food packaging technology in producer countries can be done in the best way with the help of farmers training. Changing food habits by educating consumers.
Me satisface conocer que tenemos conciencia del problema y todo pensamiento hacia las comunidades con menos posibilidades es importante y favorecerá el desarrollo de las nuevas tecnologías con un verdadero enfoque extensionista hacia toda la sociedad.
The focusing on local products/food and the supply chain should be as shorten as possible.
Vertical integration of business enterprises is one way to reduce loss. Rather than throw away value added products are produced from what otherwise would be considered waste. Significant fresh produce is thrown away but this can be targeted for composting with the composted materials being incorporated to bolster the field production. Regulation can play a positive role when waste streams are separated to create ability to extract value from the waste streams. If farmers would be carbon credits the market for the soil improvement would help stimulate recycling.
establishment of agroprocressing industries near the production centrealong with direct marketing should be the option toreduce the wastage.
Food waste can be used for renewable energy production. It can be co-digested with anaerobic sludge to produce biogas which can easily fulfill energy needs.
Integration of market,establishment of collection center as well as emphasis on organizing the farmers into grower‘s groups/commodity groups/ cooperatives/ Self Help groups/ producer companies may ensure the participation of diversely located small and marginal farmers and their linkage with the markets through collectivization of their produces.
Non-cooked food product should be properly maintain in storage and according to production it should properly sell to the market. On the other hands the wastage from food product should be supplied as cattle food.
Cooked food- should be taken as appropriate amount, so that after eating , no food will go to dustbin. Overall awareness should be taken among people.
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