An alternate approach to cutting food costs is gaining favor as more restaurants look beyond their kitchens to the garbage bins outside.
They're discovering money is being thrown away twice: when supplies that come through the back door go back out in a waste receptacle.
The converts are monitoring how much uneaten food is discarded, then reverse-engineering their operations to minimize waste. They're striving to stop burning money on uneaten food that costs additional dollars to cart away as garbage.
LeanPath, a company that helps restaurants track their garbage output to reveal potential savings, estimates the average waste at 4 percent to 10 percent of total food purchases.
"When you start looking at what you're disposing of, you start realizing, 'My goodness, I don't have to buy this,'" says Holly Elmore, CEO, Zero Waste Zones. Elmore led a well-attended education session in May at the NRA Show on reducing garbage through composting.
Efforts to reduce the amount of food thrown away often dovetail with composting and recycling initiatives, she and other waste-reduction proponents explained. Advocates strive to reduce food waste first, then recycle what they can and compost what's left, aiming to contributing virtually nothing to landfills.
As part of Atlanta's Zero Waste program, multi-concept operator Fifth Group Restaurants eliminated the need for garbage bins - fees to empty them - at four of its restaurants, Elmore notes.
"This is all about business," she says. "It's important for the environment, but it's all about business."
They're discovering money is being thrown away twice: when supplies that come through the back door go back out in a waste receptacle.
The converts are monitoring how much uneaten food is discarded, then reverse-engineering their operations to minimize waste. They're striving to stop burning money on uneaten food that costs additional dollars to cart away as garbage.
LeanPath, a company that helps restaurants track their garbage output to reveal potential savings, estimates the average waste at 4 percent to 10 percent of total food purchases.
"When you start looking at what you're disposing of, you start realizing, 'My goodness, I don't have to buy this,'" says Holly Elmore, CEO, Zero Waste Zones. Elmore led a well-attended education session in May at the NRA Show on reducing garbage through composting.
Efforts to reduce the amount of food thrown away often dovetail with composting and recycling initiatives, she and other waste-reduction proponents explained. Advocates strive to reduce food waste first, then recycle what they can and compost what's left, aiming to contributing virtually nothing to landfills.
As part of Atlanta's Zero Waste program, multi-concept operator Fifth Group Restaurants eliminated the need for garbage bins - fees to empty them - at four of its restaurants, Elmore notes.
"This is all about business," she says. "It's important for the environment, but it's all about business."
