How To Reduce Food Waste in Restaurants

Food waste is a pressing issue in the restaurant industry, and the numbers are staggering. A recent study found that anywhere from 4% to 10% of the food purchased by restaurants never makes it to the customer, and even more alarming, 30% to 40% of the food served to customers ends up uneaten. 

That’s a significant amount of resources, money and effort going to waste. Fortunately, there are actionable steps owners and managers can take to reduce food waste in restaurants, benefiting both their bottom line and the environment. 

In this article, we’ll dive into 13 practical tips that can help restaurants reduce food waste and improve their sustainability practices.

Why Reducing Food Waste Matters for Restaurants

Food waste is a growing concern in the restaurant industry, with significant implications for both the bottom line and the environment. While it’s easy to overlook, reducing waste can result in the following benefits: 

• Financial savings: Wasting food means wasting money. Whether it’s from over-portioning, spoilage or menu mismanagement, reducing food waste helps restaurants save on ingredient costs. By improving portion control and inventory management, these savings can have a lasting positive impact on profitability.
• Environmental impact: Food production uses valuable resources like water, energy and labor. When food is wasted, so are these resources. Reducing waste helps conserve these critical resources and lowers the overall environmental footprint of the restaurant. Additionally, food waste that ends up in landfills contributes to methane emissions, which can be mitigated by better waste management practices.
• Improved operations: Food waste often points to operational inefficiencies, such as improper inventory tracking or ineffective kitchen processes. By addressing waste, restaurants can streamline operations, reduce labor costs and increase kitchen efficiency, ultimately improving the overall workflow and reducing staff frustration.
• Enhanced reputation: Today’s consumers are increasingly aware of sustainability issues and are more likely to support businesses that demonstrate environmental responsibility. By tackling food waste, restaurants can improve their public image, attract eco-conscious customers and even gain recognition for their sustainability efforts.

Now that we’ve covered why reducing food waste matters, let’s take a closer look at the steps restaurants can take to minimize waste. 

How To Reduce Food Waste in Restaurants: 13 Actionable Steps

From small adjustments in daily operations to larger changes in inventory and menu planning, here’s what you need to do to reduce food waste effectively:

1. Conduct a Waste Audit

The first step in tackling food waste is understanding its scope and sources within your restaurant. A thorough waste audit provides valuable insights into your current waste generation patterns and identifies areas for improvement.

Here’s how to conduct an effective waste audit:

• Step 1: Document all food items discarded over a set period, typically one week.
• Step 2: Categorize waste by type (e.g., prep waste, spoilage, customer plate waste).
• Step 3: Weigh each category to quantify the amount of waste generated.
• Step 4: Analyze the data to identify trends and major contributors to waste.

This process helps pinpoint specific areas where waste reduction efforts can have the most significant impact. For instance, you might discover that a particular dish consistently generates more prep waste than others, prompting a review of portion sizes or preparation techniques.

Remember to involve your entire team in the audit process. Chefs, Line Cooks and kitchen staff can provide valuable insights into why certain items are being discarded and suggest potential solutions. Their hands-on experience is crucial for developing effective waste-reduction strategies.

2. Implement Inventory Management Systems

Effective inventory management is essential for reducing food waste in restaurants. By implementing robust systems and processes, you can ensure optimal stock levels, minimize overordering and prevent spoilage.

One of the most effective strategies is to adopt a first-in-first-out (FIFO) approach to stock rotation. This approach ensures older items are used before newer ones, reducing the risk of spoilage. 

Digital inventory management tools can further streamline the process, allowing you to track stock levels in real-time and reduce the chance of overordering. Regular stock takes will help identify any discrepancies, enabling you to adjust your ordering accordingly.

For perishable items, a just-in-time ordering system can be highly effective. This approach involves ordering smaller quantities more frequently, minimizing the risk of spoilage by keeping stock levels low and fresh. Although this may require more frequent deliveries, the reduction in waste often justifies the extra cost.

3. Optimize Menu Planning

Strategic menu planning is a powerful way to reduce food waste while maintaining variety and quality in your restaurant’s offerings. By thinking about how ingredients are used across dishes, you can minimize waste, improve inventory efficiency and streamline kitchen operations.

Start by creating dishes that share common ingredients to increase versatility and ensure every item in your inventory is used to its fullest potential. Specials can also be an excellent opportunity to reduce waste — design them around surplus inventory or ingredients nearing their expiration dates. 

Seasonal menus take this a step further, focusing on fresh, locally available produce while also appealing to customers seeking seasonal flavors.

Offering customizable, flexible menu options is another way to cut waste. Allowing guests to choose portion sizes or substitute ingredients for dietary needs can help you avoid unnecessary waste while accommodating diverse preferences.

Cross-utilizing ingredients is particularly valuable for reducing waste and maximizing efficiency. For example, if one dish uses egg whites, another dish can feature egg yolks. This approach not only ensures that fewer ingredients go unused but also inspires creativity in your kitchen, leading to innovative menu ideas.

Regularly reviewing your menu is crucial for long-term success. Track the popularity of each dish, adjust portion sizes where needed and consider removing items that consistently generate waste.

Involve your Chef and kitchen staff in this process, as their hands-on experience often reveals valuable insights into which dishes are efficient to prepare and which tend to result in waste.

4. Implement Portion Control Measures

Effective portion control is a critical strategy to help reduce food waste in restaurants. It ensures that customers receive appropriate serving sizes while minimizing plate waste and overproduction.

Consider these approaches to improve portion control:

• Standardize recipes and use measuring tools to ensure consistent portions
• Train servers to accurately describe portion sizes to customers
• Offer different portion sizes to accommodate varying appetites
• Use appropriately sized plates and serving utensils

Implementing a robust portion control system may require an initial investment in tools like portion scales or standardized scoops, but the long-term benefits in waste reduction and cost savings can be substantial.

It’s also important to regularly review and adjust portion sizes based on customer feedback and plate waste observations. If you notice that a particular dish consistently returns with leftovers, it might be time to reconsider the portion size or presentation.

5. Utilize Food Scraps Creatively

Finding innovative ways to repurpose food scraps and trimmings can significantly cut waste while giving your menu a creative edge. 

Vegetable trimmings can be turned into flavorful stocks, fruit peels into zesty syrups for cocktails or desserts and stale bread into croutons, breadcrumbs or even bread pudding. Even meat trimmings can be transformed into pâtés, terrines or flavorful pizza toppings. 

Encouraging your Chef and kitchen team to explore creative uses for scraps can lead to unique culinary creations that set your restaurant apart. Hosting special “zero-waste” menu nights featuring dishes made from typically discarded ingredients is another way to showcase your commitment to sustainability and innovation.

Proper food safety practices are essential when repurposing scraps. Train your staff to handle, store and use these ingredients within safe time frames to ensure the quality and safety of every dish.

6. Train Staff on Waste Reduction Techniques

Educating your staff about waste reduction and providing them with the skills to implement it effectively is essential for a successful waste management strategy. 

Comprehensive training programs can significantly reduce your restaurant’s waste output by focusing on proper food storage, efficient preparation methods and accurate portion control.

Workshops or training sessions led by your Chef or an external expert can be highly effective. These sessions might include improving knife skills to minimize trim waste, finding creative uses for food scraps or learning proper composting techniques.

Such hands-on training ensures that your team is equipped with practical tools to reduce waste in everyday operations.

Building a culture of waste awareness is equally important. Encourage employees to suggest waste reduction ideas or flag instances of unnecessary waste.

This collaborative approach not only helps identify potential inefficiencies but also fosters a sense of ownership and accountability among your staff, making waste reduction a shared responsibility.

8. Partner With Local Farms and Suppliers

Partnering with local farms and suppliers is a practical way to reduce food waste in your restaurant. Locally sourced ingredients are typically fresher, last longer and reduce the risk of spoilage. 

Some key benefits of working with local suppliers include:

• Smaller, more frequent orders: This minimizes excess inventory and prevents overstocking.
• Real-time order adjustments: Suppliers can accommodate your immediate needs, reducing the surplus.
• Seasonal produce at its peak: This ensures quality and reduces waste from out-of-season items.
• Discounted “imperfect” produce: These items are cosmetically flawed but perfectly usable.

Communicate your waste reduction goals with your suppliers. Many are willing to collaborate by offering tailored solutions, such as custom-growing arrangements or providing byproducts for creative menu use. 

Regular meetings or farm visits can further strengthen these partnerships, fostering innovation and deeper understanding between your team and the producers.

9. Implement Proper Storage Techniques

Implementing proper storage techniques is essential to extending the shelf life of ingredients and minimizing spoilage. Effective storage practices not only preserve the quality of your inventory but also play a significant role in reducing overall food waste.

Start by ensuring that all ingredients are stored at the correct temperatures to slow bacterial growth. Use airtight containers to maintain freshness and prevent contamination, and clearly label all stored items with their contents and the date of storage. 

Keeping refrigerators and storage areas well-organized is also crucial, as it ensures ingredients are easy to locate and less likely to be overlooked.

Investing in high-quality storage tools, such as vacuum sealers and humidity-regulating containers, may incur upfront costs. However, this can greatly reduce spoilage, leading to long-term savings and improved sustainability.

10. Donate Excess Food

Donating excess meals or snacks is an excellent way to reduce food waste in restaurants — while also supporting your local community. Many restaurants generate perfectly edible food that can’t be served to customers but is still safe for consumption.

To implement an effective food donation program:

• Partner with local food banks or charitable organizations
• Establish clear guidelines for what can be donated and how to prepare it
• Train staff on proper handling and packaging of donated food
• Keep accurate records of donations for tax purposes and tracking

Before implementing a donation program, familiarize yourself with local food safety regulations and liability laws regarding food donations. 

11. Implement a Composting Program

Implementing a composting program is a smart and environmentally friendly way to manage unavoidable food waste. Not only does composting reduce the amount of waste sent to landfills, but it can also turn food scraps into valuable compost for gardening or landscaping.

To get a composting program up and running, first decide whether to compost on-site or work with an outside facility. If on-site composting is the way to go, consider investing in commercial composting equipment made specifically for restaurants, as it can handle large volumes and different types of food waste.

Next, ensure your staff is properly trained to sort waste for composting and provide clearly labeled bins in kitchen areas to make the process easy. If on-site composting isn’t feasible, partner with local farms or composting facilities that can manage the waste.

Monitor the program regularly to assess its effectiveness. You may need to adjust sorting practices or modify the types of waste being composted based on the results. 

12. Educate Customers on Waste Reduction

Educating your customers about waste reduction can play a key role in minimizing overall food waste. By raising awareness, you can encourage more mindful ordering and consumption habits, which can lead to less waste generated in the first place.

To engage customers, consider incorporating information about your waste reduction efforts directly on menus or table cards. Train your Servers to communicate portion sizes and guide customers toward more mindful ordering.

You can also offer “doggy bags” proactively to customers for leftover food and host special events or promotions that highlight your sustainability efforts.

Additionally, think about introducing a rewards program that incentivizes customers to join your waste reduction initiatives. For example, offering a discount to customers who bring their own reusable containers for takeout can encourage more sustainable practices.

13. Regularly Review and Adjust Waste Reduction Practices

Reducing food waste is an ongoing process that requires regular review and adjustment of your practices. What works today may not be as effective tomorrow due to changes in menu offerings, customer preferences or supplier relationships.

Key steps for ongoing waste reduction management:

• Conduct regular waste audits to track progress and identify new areas for improvement
• Solicit feedback from staff and customers on waste reduction efforts
• Stay informed about new technologies and best practices in waste reduction
• Adjust menu offerings based on waste data and customer preferences

Consider forming a “green team” within your restaurant, comprised of staff members from different departments. This team can be responsible for monitoring waste reduction efforts, suggesting improvements and implementing new initiatives.

Regularly celebrate successes and milestones in your waste reduction journey. This can help maintain staff motivation and reinforce the importance of these efforts.

Challenges Restaurants Face When Reducing Food Waste

Reducing food waste in restaurants is a worthwhile goal, but it’s not without its challenges. From tight budgets to unpredictable demand, there are many factors that make managing food waste difficult. Understanding these obstacles is the first step toward finding effective solutions.

• Limited staff time and resources: Staff already juggle numerous responsibilities, and adding waste management to their workload can feel overwhelming. Smaller restaurants often lack the personnel or funding to invest in waste-reduction strategies.
• Unpredictable customer demand: Busy weekends followed by quieter days can leave restaurants with too much or too little prepared food. Weather changes, last-minute cancellations and special events also make accurate forecasting a challenge.
• Storage and inventory limitations: Inadequate storage space or poor inventory organization often leads to spoilage, especially for perishable ingredients in small kitchens.
• Customer preferences and expectations: Customers expect large portions or specific dishes, even if these lead to higher waste. Adjusting portion sizes or menu offerings can risk dissatisfaction or complaints.
• Cost of implementing solutions: Investing in tools like waste-tracking software, composting systems or more efficient inventory management can feel expensive for restaurants operating on tight margins.
• Perceived complexity: Waste reduction can seem overwhelming without clear steps or guidance.
• Regulatory and liability concerns: Restaurants may hesitate to donate surplus food due to confusion about health regulations or fear of legal liability, despite protections like the Good Samaritan Food Donation Act.

While these challenges can be intimidating, they are surmountable. Starting with small, achievable changes and building on success can help restaurants reduce waste while improving their bottom line and contributing to sustainability efforts.

Taking the First Step Toward Sustainability

Start with a couple of simple steps that make sense for your restaurant — whether it’s improving portion control or tracking the most common food waste.

What matters most is commitment. Reducing food waste isn’t a one-time fix — it’s an ongoing process that requires regular evaluation. Tools and resources can make this process easier, and that’s where platforms like OysterLink come in. 

OysterLink connects restaurants with talented professionals who can bring fresh perspectives to operational challenges, including waste reduction. Whether you’re hiring for a kitchen role or looking to improve overall efficiency, having the right team in place is crucial for sustainability.

By starting small, leveraging the right tools and staying consistent, you’re not just cutting waste — you’re building a more sustainable, efficient and profitable restaurant for the long term. Every small change you make today brings you closer to a greener future.