Fighting Food Waste in the Office Cafeteria

If you run an office cafeteria, you know that food costs add up. If people don’t eat the food that you buy, that makes it even worse. You know that wasted food is wasted money, but it also has an environmental cost. Just one meal in a restaurant creates up to a half-pound of food waste, according to NPR. You don’t want to waste money, nor do you want to pollute by running your cafeteria. What do you do to reduce office cafeteria waste, then?

Auditing

To gauge how to reduce office food waste, you should have an idea of how much you’re spending on the food you’re serving versus how much is actually being eaten. Take an inventory of your stock, then compare your inventory to your sales. You’ll know exactly how much food you’re wasting.

Figure Out Why You’re Wasting Food

When you know how much food you’re wasting, you have to know why. Is food spoiling due to improper storage or customers who aren’t interested? You’ll have to educate your employees on avoiding spoilage.

You might also have to change your menus if customers are leaving food on the counters. This might sound obvious, but you should serve food that people are willing to eat. If your customers insist on only subsisting on pizza or chicken nuggets, that’s one thing, but you should have an idea of their tastes.

Recycling/Composting

You also might want to consider a food scrap recycling or composting program in your cafeteria. By placing a recycling bin by the garbage can, food that isn’t eaten won’t be wasted but can find some use. Composted food can be used to grow more food. People are finding all sorts of uses for food scraps that you wouldn’t believe are possible.

By auditing your food costs, changing your menus, training your staff, and recycling your food scraps, you can not only reduce food costs but also lighten your load on the environment.