January 6th, 2023

Cutting Restaurant Waste is About More than Food Scraps


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When you take a fresh look at what waste really means, you will find dozens of ways to reduce food and beverage costs, plus labour, packaging and energy expenses – the list goes on! By including staff in the program to cut restaurant waste, you also maximise another resource – the skill and experience of your people. ‘Wasted talent and creativity’ is a daily loss in many businesses – so much potential for improvement there!

Surveys show that a large proportion of foodservice waste is what comes back on customer plates – the portions are just too big! There are also our internal problems with poor preparation, faulty refrigeration and careless storage. It all adds up to a lot of money! But it’s easy to just focus on spoiled food and spilled drinks, when the problem is much wider and the costs much more expensive.

The Toyota motor company is famous for its ‘just in time’ manufacturing methods, maximising the output of cars and engines. They revolutionised production in so many ways, and there are many lessons we can learn for our own small scale ‘manufacturing’ in the kitchen and bar. Toyota focused not just on loss of physical product, but also loss of worker time, and given the cost of our own labour, that’s definitely worth including in the ‘waste reduction’ campaign.

Let’s look at each of the waste areas that Toyota engineers highlighted, and how they can apply in a program to cut restaurant waste:

Overproduction: creating more food or product than needed. Eg…

  • The chef over-prepares seafood for the night’s special and ends up with leftovers that go to waste.

  • Or bar staff slice way too much fruit garnish and it is not used.

Excessive wait time: when staff have to wait to do their job because of bottlenecks, shortages of equipment, or lack of support. Eg…

  • For example, a server might have to wait for a dish because the kitchen has run out of pans,

  • or a bartender might not have enough glassware to serve drinks.

Transport waste: unnecessary movement of products and equipment. Eg…

  • For example, a server carrying two drinks by hand instead of using a tray to carry multiple glasses at once.

  • Or the lack of trolleys means kitchen staff have to make multiple trips from store room to kitchen.

Processing waste: repeated actions that add no value to a product or service. Eg…

  • For example, a chef preparing a dish with too many garnishes,

  • or bar staff making overly complex drinks in a simple pub.

Inventory waste: over-ordering that results in spoilage or theft. Eg…

  • For example, a restaurant ordering too many herbs that end up going bad before they can be used,

  • or alcohol being stored insecurely, which results in pilfering by staff.

Motion waste: unnecessary movement that does not add value, Eg…

  • such as untrained staff taking too long to clear tables,

  • or manual rostering that takes much longer than needed to prepare.

Defect waste: when a product or service does not meet a standard, whether due to human or equipment error. Eg…

  • For example, lesser quality fries substituted for the usual more expensive ones, resulting in slower cook times, complaints and possibly refunds.

  • Lack of proper equipment maintenance means that the oven does not cook products evenly and 20% cannot be served.

Benefits of looking at the 7 types of waste…

  • When we look at the term ‘waste’ more broadly, it’s obvious how many opportunities there are for cost saving and increased customer satisfaction.

  • Now we’re not just looking at loss of food or beverages, but that most expensive commodity of all: human labour and wage costs.

  • When you save on the cost of goods and labour, you create increased profits and capital to invest in business improvements – which could lead to further savings. The benefits continue to grow.

Time for Action
Now’s the time for a full-scale call to action to cut restaurant waste: across the kitchen, bar, front of house and administration. Brief your staff on the 7 types of waste you want to look at, and ask each team for 3 examples of each. When it comes to time and motion waste saving, this is likely to make their job easier, not more difficult – there won’t be much resistance!

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Check the other useful blog posts on the Foodie Coaches website…

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