Restaurants and Food Service
Tab/Accordion Items
Reduce waste
- Conduct a food waste audit to understand how much and what type of waste the restaurant produces.
- Brainstorm with staff about reduction strategies specific to your business.
- Learn the difference between pre-consumer and post-consumer waste, and how you can prevent both.
- Reduce reliance on disposable items, and substitute more sustainable options. See below for more information on compostable products.
- Consider implementing food waste tracking software.
- Donate food you will not be able to use
Prevention Tips for Pre-Consumer Waste
- Evaluate your inventory.
- Implement low-waste menus that use repurposed products, left-over ingredients or the whole-product.
- Use the "first in, first out" (FIFO) system. Place older products at the front of the refrigerator/freezer/pantry, and use them first before using the newest items.
- Ensure staff know how to reduce waste.
- Offer staff meals when there are not enough ingredients for a full-service meal or find ways to sell these limited amounts to customers.
Prevention Tips for Post-Consumer Waste
- Control and monitor portion sizes.
- Take note of each dish's popularity.
- Support clients taking leftover food home with them.
- Cook to-order rather than bulk-cooking especially at the end of the day.
- Eliminate garnishes that frequently go uneaten.
- Provide samples to customers.
- Educate customers through signage and menu messaging.
- Ask customers if they want chips or bread rather than automatically serving them.
Grocery Stores
Tab/Accordion Items
Perform a food waste audit
Call a staff meeting to discuss strategies
Educate Customers
- Post signs to inform customers about food waste and how to prevent it.
- Offer recipes to help use leftovers.
- Create a discount section to sell bruised or “ugly” produce.
Form Partnerships
- Work with farmers to ensure every produce item is used, even if it is added to compost or used for animal feed.
- Host an event and work with local restaurants and food rescue organizations to prepare meals with excess food for food insecure individuals.
Donate excess food to local food banks and soup kitchens
Find and contract with a composter
June 25, 2024
Serve Smart: Food Waste Reduction Strategies for NC Dining
Compostable Food Serviceware
Compostable products can help divert waste from the landfill, but not all compostable products are alike. When adopting compostable products for your business, do your research. Many manufacturers claim their products are “green,” but these claims are often misleading.
- Make sure the products are American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) certified or have a BPI or other facility certification or label and not just generically labeled “compostable.” Find certified compostable products here.
- Watch out for generic terms like “decomposable,” “degradable,” and “biodegradable.” These terms do not specify in what type of environment the product will degrade, and manufacturers still use traditional polymer materials that may contain additives to potentially promote biodegradation.
- If a product is made in whole or in part from renewable or biobased resources (like plants), it does not automatically mean that the product can be composted. Remember: everything that is compostable is biodegradable, but not everything that is biodegradable is compostable.
- Compost and traditional recycling are different. Compost is a form of organics recycling, but compostable materials should not be processed with traditional recycle material like plastic or cardboard.
- Compostable plastic products should not be added to a non-commercial compost pile unless the label indicates that the product is okay for home composting.
- Contract with a commercial composter and understand which products they do or do not accept. Find a commercial composter.
- Partner with nearby businesses to share a compost contract to meet the minimum amount required and to split the cost.
- Using the proper waste streams – landfill, recycle, compost and donating – can also reduce operating costs.
Check out US Compost Council's Compostable Food Serviceware Quick Guide
Find out more by visiting epa.gov and compostingcouncil.org.
