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Value natural resources & reduce waste

SDG 6, 7, 12, 13, 17

What can you do in your own kitchens?

  • Lead by example. Separate, monitor and set targets to reduce food waste. Manage food safety processes and use-by dates to avoid wastage.

  • Lead by example. Plan food orders and menus to minimise food waste. Offer smaller portion sizes.

  • Lead by example. Use the whole ingredient and encourage nose to tail, root to leaf eating. Be creative: pickle, preserve, dehydrate and freeze.

  • Use your purchasing power. Engage suppliers and producers to help incorporate surplus produce into menus.

  • Be a community food champion. Re-distribute surplus food through community sharing and food bank programmes or apps.

  • Lead by example. Be resource efficient. Manage water usage to cut costs and protect the environment.

  • Lead by example. Divert waste from landfill. Investigate turning food waste into compost or bio-gas. Consider offsetting the carbon used in your restaurant or switching to renewable energy sources.

  • Use your purchasing power. Work with producers and suppliers to avoid excess packaging. Use recycled, recyclable and biodegradable packaging.

What can you ask of others?

  • Advocate for producers and retailers to join the Champions 12.3 initiative to help reach Global Goal 12.3 on tackling food waste.

Bite-Sized Inspirations:

Repurposed Food

Multiple waste management strategies are used throughout Tredwell’s kitchen & restaurant. Food is delivered by suppliers to the restaurant daily, helping to mitigate food spoilage. Chefs employ techniques to repurpose produce - part of an ongoing process to rethink a food’s potential use. For example, fish trimmings are frozen until there is a good supply to then put fish cakes on the menu. Diners are encouraged to take any 'left-overs' home with them, as opposed to it going in the bin. Additionally, Tredwells has created its own waste management strategy in which a farmer collects food waste from the restaurant. This food waste is mulched and used to grow produce for the restaurant in a small garden plot. Tredwell also minimises water usage with simple actions such as reducing the use of water-demanding machines to a minimum.

A Waste Free Restaurant

Eco-Chef Justin Horne is a strong advocate for zero waste who believes that quality needn’t be sacrificed to live sustainably. Chef Justin has translated this thinking into practice by establishing London’s first organic, vegetarian and zero-waste restaurant, Tiny Leaf. Tiny Leaf aims to showcase the potential of food and cooking when a creative and sustainable approach is implemented. Surplus ingredients are sourced from local food suppliers that would have otherwise been discarded and are used to form healthy, vegetable-centric dishes. Chef Justin hopes his restaurant can educate, call attention to and change the food industry’s practices around food management. Moving forward, Chef Justin is working to create a Vertical Farm Circular Economy Restaurant that grows its own produce and generates its own energy. It will harvest the restaurants emissions to be used in the farm and bio-digest its food waste into energy.

Wise Up On Waste

In the UK, food waste costs the food and hospitality industry £2.5 billion each year.  Around 920,000 tonnes of food - equivalent to 1.3 billion meals - is thrown away annually, despite the fact that three-quarters of it could have been eaten.  Through its foodservice business, Unilever Food Solutions (UFS), Unilever is helping chefs and caterers to cut their food waste and see how much money they can save in the process. UFS’ Wise Up on Waste tool, launched in the UK in 2013 allows chefs to track, monitor and reduce food waste across multiple sites.

 

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