With so much focus on costs and on having the right products for your menu, it’s absolutely vital that you do all you can to reduce wastage.
There is more focus on reducing food waste now than ever before. Therefore, our Culinary Development Chef, Paul Tunnicliffe has put together a food waste matrix to inspire chefs and help with reducing the most commonly wasted ingredients.
The matrix provides meal ideas to consider putting on your menu which are both tasty and great for making sure the ingredients don’t get wasted.
Don’t let your leftovers go to waste! Our chefs are always looking at creating food waste recipes that show how to turn your unused ingredients into delicious meals. All of which designed to help you reduce food waste and save money.
Say goodbye to food waste and hello to delicious meals. Discover some of our favourite ways to use up your ingredients with our simple and easy-to-follow recipes:
If you have the freezer capacity, utilise it as much as you can.
If you need to prioritise your freezer, think about what defrosts the quickest so you don’t have too much stock defrosting at the same time and so you can quickly defrost product during a busy service.
The bigger the menu you have, the more preparation/stock you have to hold and potentially lose.
By having a large menu, it means there is more room for mistakes to happen during service as a result of overcooking and undercooking, particularly if your labour is strained.
Try to use a product multiple times on your menu, for example:
• Can your burger bun become a pretzel bun to be used also as a gourmet American style bun carrier for your sandwich menu?
• Could you look at the cheese slice you use for burgers? Could the cheese be used as a sandwich fill or even added with ham to create a chicken schnitzel cordon bleu on a main course dish?
• Look at the sauces you’re using and find ways for using them across your menu on different dishes. For example, you could use a tomato base in pasta dishes, soups and as a pizza topping, but you could also use it to mix it in with other premium flavours, like harissa, for quality dips.
This enables you to use up ingredients whilst they’re in date and helps reduce waste and costs at the same time.
When focusing on reducing food waste it can be difficult to know where to begin. Guardians of Grub provide a fantastic hub of support. This includes practical tools aimed at everyone from CEOs to kitchen porters, so they can confidently reduce the amount of waste you produce.
There are plenty of food waste apps available which are growing in popularity with consumers and great for reducing your waste, particularly in city locations. We’ve seen a rise in brands helping with this, such as Too good to go, Karma, Olio, WRAP and IGD are inviting businesses to participate in whole chain food waste reduction plans (WCPs) – working together across the supply chain to take joint actions that reduce farm to fork food waste.
WCPs form a key deliverable of the Courtauld Commitment 2030 and the UK Food Waste Reduction Roadmap. As well as the pledges, they have resources available to help you reach your goals.
Looking for recipe ideas and more information about the importance of food waste? Love Food Hate Waste provide fantastic resources for chefs to help them reducing the amount of food they waste. This includes insightful blogs and waste-busting recipes too.
We’ve been active on Sustainability for more than a decade, so now it’s part of our DNA. Today the issues are more urgent than ever, and the range of issues our strategy needs to address are wider.
Learn more about our goals and read our sustainability development report for 2021 here.
Stay inspired!