Here’s why you should reduce your food waste Chef
A Chef’s ability to recognise, reduce and account for their kitchen’s food waste is now required as a 21st century skillset.
As Chefs all over the globe gear up for re-launch after mass confinement to combat the Coronavirus pandemic, there will be pressure on them to re-think every aspect of their kitchen operation - from costs to compliance to creativity.
And with severely limited scope for error in any of those areas, every tool and resource that can be used will be a welcome one.
It used to be said that a cook cooks, and a chef creates.
That still holds true when writing a menu, but a Chef today needs to be more than just a creative cook. In this internet age where craft skills are a commodity and customers can serve up Michelin standard meals at home by following along on YouTube; every professional Chef needs to take a centuries-old repertoire and apply a 21st century skillset if they are to thrive in a very tough market.
Beyond cooking, that skillset includes:
Leading your people
Safeguarding compliance
Driving cost efficiency
Reducing your environmental impact
Food Waste measurement is one discipline that has been overlooked in the belief that it is irrelevent (plot twist: it isn’t) in the same way that temperature recording, allergen training or supplier vetting was resisted until business realised the cost of ignorance far outweighed the investment in awareness, technology and training.
Excuses that the input is time-consuming or costly no longer hold up to scrutiny. Here’s why you should reduce your food waste Chef:
To get to your ‘true’ food cost
We know that reducing your food waste and reducing your food cost are two different metrics, but they are intrinsically linked.
One of the key drivers in reducing your food cost is to reduce the amount of food you waste.
A chef who can make a 10% reduction in food they waste, typically sees a reduction in their overall food COST by 3% depending on the changes made. In financial terms some of our clients have food purchases of £100,000 per month. That represents a saving of £3000 a month - or £36,000 per year still in the bank and not in the bin.
Every chef will tell you the wastage on a cauliflower (the leaves trimmed off) is about 30%. But how many can tell with accuracy how much of the rest of that that cauliflower was sold and eaten, unsold, or sold and wasted? If that cooked cauliflower was left unsold, we call it over-production. If it was sold, but left uneaten; it becomes plate-waste (or takeawaste).
So, did you get the most efficient use you could out of that produce when you had the chance to? Did your team? (And for bonus points; can you evidence that?). Either way Chef.. the invoice for it is on your desk waiting to be paid.
To test this theory, the American Hotel & Lodging Association found in a recent study that for every $1 hotels invested in programs to reduce kitchen food waste, on average they saved $7 in operating costs.
According to the researchers:
Within just one year, the hotels (involved in the study) had reduced food waste from their kitchens by 21 percent on average, and more than 70 percent had recouped their investment. Within two years, 95 percent had recouped their investment.
The 7:1 return on investment comes from buying less food and thereby reducing purchase costs, increasing revenue from new menu items developed from leftovers or foods previously considered “scraps,” and lower waste-management costs.
Do you really know what is going in the bin?
You can’t be everywhere at once. We get that… especially if you manage multiple kitchens or perhaps a group of sites.. and what about on your day off Chef? Who checks then?
Imagine a system that tracks every item of waste… with photos, weight and timings of food being thrown away.
Now imagine that was all accessible on a tablet or laptop away from the kitchen when you are working from home or the next day when you are back in? Chefs Eye have made it easier than ever before to keep an eye on who is doing what in your operation.
To instil team accountability
In a previous article on why you should measure your food waste, we mentioned that culture eats strategy for breakfast.
You can call your team around the hotplate for a briefing about how you want to reduce food waste, but without that complete buy-in, your strategy is doomed from the start. While some team-members will embrace this without question, others will shrug their shoulders and go back to doing what they’ve always done; throwing your expensive ingredients in the bin. What then?
This is where your leadership and team accountability plays a key part in changing mindsets. If one or two team members are letting you down out of laziness, indifference or ignorance to the objective, then you can track their specific metrics - and food photos - in a constructive conversation. Better still, you can use it to do a team-wide refresher training session to bring everyone along on the journey..
Save more to make more
Consider how much time you spend researching suppliers (or chasing them up!), ordering ingredients, checking them in, cross-referencing invoices, writing rotas to ensure production is covered… just to see all that food produced end up in the bin. What’s the point chef?
In a recent ‘TakeAction on Waste’ study carried out by WRAP, they found that the average cost of avoidable food waste to business is £0.97 per meal.
That’s literally a quid going in the bin every time you serve up a meal! What a waste of time and effort that could be spent on something more productive.
And here’s another the paradox… lower food waste can result in higher sales. It seems unlikely, but some of our clients have seen this outcome. Here’s how it works; if you reduce your food waste (thereby saving you money), you end up with more of your food budget to spend on better ingredients. Better ingredients often attract a higher premium which in turn results in higher sales.
It’s time to take ownership Chef
How often in the past have we seen a tap left running into a sink all day to defrost a kilo of prawns? Or hotplates and salamander grills left blazing hot all day.. long after service ended? These were preactices done without any consideration for the environment or the astronomical costs to the business paying the wage bill. Here’s the thing Chef: those days are over.
Ignorance may be bliss, but it is no longer an excuse. Chefs today are in an information age where we can be informed about that matters. This means challenging yourself and your team to find more efficiencies, reduce those risks, develop your people and really care for the environment. Customers expect it; employers expect it and colleagues expect it.
Our challenge to you is to make food waste reduction the one priority and skillset you can be proud of as a Chef.
