I hate to be the one to break this to you, but there’s a big leak in your hotel’s kitchen. It’s a veritable gusher. And it’s been going on for a long time. However, before you send maintenance running with a wrench, I recommend a call to your F&B manager and executive chef. Because the leak isn’t caused by water; it’s from pre-consumer food waste. And it’s not anyone’s fault; it’s a by-product of the way hotel conference centers forecast and produce food for banquets, buffets and receptions.
In fact, 4 to 8 percent of the food you purchase will end up as pre-consumer waste: overproduction, trim waste, spoilage, contamination, or overcooking. For every $1 million of food purchases, you may be throwing away $80,000 or more. The good news is that this waste can be reduced or avoided by confronting several common myths:
Myth #1: There’s no waste here.
Let’s face it, no hotel chef ever received a pat on the back for acknowledging kitchen waste. Some F&B managers and executives still practice “shoot the chef” leadership, assuming any problem in the kitchen must belong to the chef, especially waste. The first step to avoiding waste is to understand that every complex foodservice operation has waste and identifying the opportunity is the first step toward improvement.
This waste is often created unintentionally, as a by-product of a customer-service commitment that is otherwise laudable. Put simply, no one in hospitality wants to disappoint a guest by running out of food. Every person from the executive chef down the line adds a margin of safety. As a result, we end up with a snowball of good intentions leading to excessive production. So repeat after me: I have a hotel kitchen, therefore I must have waste as well as opportunities to do better.
Myth #2: We work with guaranteed counts; we MUST overproduce!
Yes, you often guarantee production levels for specific numbers of conference guests. And sometimes meeting planners overestimate their attendance, theoretically helping you boost profits. Though you may become aware of this mismatch on the first day of a multi-day event, the executive chef often responds by dutifully producing to the guaranteed count, plus a contractual pad factor. As vast quantities of food go into the trash at the end of the event, there’s a familiar refrain: “It doesn’t matter; it was paid for.” But it does matter.
Financially you invested thousands of dollars in inventory, transportation, accounting and storage. You incurred kitchen wear and tear, compensated employees to make food that they knew would never be consumed, and ultimately paid to haul away the waste. This waste probably ended up in a landfill where it broke down into methane that created adverse impacts on our climate. An alternate approach would be to adjust production, in consultation with the customer, thereby reducing the waste and still charging a re-stocking fee equal to the margin you would have netted on the full guaranteed order, perhaps with an additional charge for any inventory you cannot be certain to reuse at another function.
Myth #3: We’re currently recycling and/or composting, so we have a very green F&B operation.
Recycling and composting are fabulous, but any green initiative needs to include attempts to reduce waste at its source. By seeking to avoid waste before it starts, hotels have the opportunity to save money (2 to 4 percent of food purchases, in my experience). This happens by purchasing less food, investing less labor time, and paying less to discard the items. By the time you’re recycling or composting, most of the chance for cost savings has already passed. So, how do I reduce waste?
• Debunk the myths publicly. Operators can make a big difference by acknowledging that waste exists, that overproduction to meet guaranteed counts is not an immutable law of the universe, and that waste avoidance and reduction need to be top priorities.
• Measuring waste. Record data about everything being discarded, get smarter about what pre-consumer waste is going into the garbage, why it’s being thrown away, on which days, at what times, and for which events.
• Understanding root causes. As chefs develop greater information about their waste streams, they will develop a deeper understanding of the reasons why the waste occurs and can craft solutions to reduce or avoid the waste. Changes might involve menu adjustments, revision of order guides, more focused use of batch cooking, more emphasis on team communication about production levels before and during events, and more attention to efficient trimming of fresh fruits and vegetables.
Pre-consumer food waste is too large an opportunity to ignore—financially and environmentally. It deserves the attention of every hotel conference center manager, every F&B manager, and every executive chef.
Andrew Shakman is president and CEO of LeanPath, a technology company focused on food waste avoidance and reduction in hospitality and foodservice operations. He can be reached at ashakman@leanpath.com, or by phone at (503) 620-6512.
