Food Waste – everyone is talking about it, is it on your business agenda?

Food waste – everybody’s talking about it and it’s on the political and media agenda just now. Supermarket adverts, newspaper articles and television coverage.

Last week was a media hot spot of food waste discussion, we saw Chef Michel Roux Jr and Mary Berry talk about making the most of your leftovers in BBC 2’s food and drink programme. and on Sunday night Country File discussed the issues around bringing back pig swill as possible way to manage food waste and reduce feed costs.

The Huffington Post also compiled a list of the 12 ‘Greatest Strides towards Reducing Food Waste’ highlighting some significant projects in 2013 making a difference.

Apart from being in the political and media spotlight, food waste costs hospitality businesses money and how it’s dealt with impacts on your customers perceptions of the sector. Some food for thought perhaps is the £357 million each year it costs the Pub sector, £318 million annual cost for hotels or the £682 million a year for the UK Restaurant Sector Reference: http://www.wrap.org.uk/content/food-waste-hospitality-and-food-service-sector

With cost, there is opportunity… Opportunity to minimise food waste to start with, to buy smart, turn leftovers into thrifty and healthy menus and reduce waste management costs through recycling what’s left. At home or in a business context, there are opportunities to make positive change, reducing what we send to landfill and saving some money along the way.

With around 1.3 billion meals wasted each year in the UKs hospitality and food service sector, WRAP are championing the Hospitality and Foodservice Agreement which aims to tackle food waste through support to the sector in reducing waste and recycling more.

It goes without saying of course, RHP can help you with your food waste saving quest, so give us a call 0845 5913 6350 to find out how! (We can’t write a blog without a plug, it wold be like wasting money needlessly on food waste!)