Balancing food waste and customer experience

Owner William Griffiths and Executive Chef Paul Brown offer a high quality, locally sourced lunch and dinner menu at the Angel Hotel. They wanted to maintain these high standards and customer satisfaction levels while looking for ways to reduce food waste each shift. They were particularly concerned about plate waste and wanted to investigate reducing portion sizes without upsetting or causing an imbalance in customer perceptions of value for money or undermining price sensitivity.

Using the ‘Your Business is Food; don’t throw it away’ (YBIF) materials from WRAP and implementing the three-day weighing module, the true cost of the waste being produced was revealed (Step 1). Discussions ensued about introducing acceptable changes in procedures and portions, and how to engage customers to understand these efforts to reduce food waste (Step 2). The chef was keen to consider a system that could gauge customer requirements at the point of order, to try to determine what size portion they would prefer and consider serving vegetables as a requested side order rather than plated. As a result of using YBIF across the board, new practices can be introduced to reduce the identified levels of food waste.

YBIF was the catalyst to prompt the restaurant’s trial with smaller portion-size options and combat what was easily the largest waste contributor (uneaten food). It was a difficult decision to make as the team shared concerns that they might disappoint valued customers by doing so. The sheer monetary value of the waste caused by the previous portion sizes persuaded remedial action and, while still in its infancy, the trial has received broadly positive feedback from guests.

The restaurant used the YBIF three-day tracking sheet and calculator to give initial insights as to how much food they were throwing away and what it was costing the business (e.g. preparation waste came to 131 kg over the trial period, while the plate waste total was 205 kg, representing 470 g per cover). For even more insights and detail, restaurants could use the seven-day tracking sheet and other tools offered as part of the YBIF suite (see references below).

As part of the new approach, the chef is re-examining the restaurant menu, and considering serving certain foods as side dishes (i.e. chips and salads) instead of on the main plate. Further measures are also likely to be introduced once the full analysis of food waste savings has taken place internally.