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Marnotrawstwo żywności w restauracjach: 9 sposobów radzenia sobie z tym krytycznym wskaźnikiem

June 20, 2023

Katie McCann

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Math can be complicated, but this math is simple. Less restaurant food waste = more money on your bottom line.

Restaurant food waste is a costly issue for restaurants — about $162 billion dollars annually, to put a dollar amount to exactly how costly this issue is.

The bottom line at your QSR may already be tight. Even minor changes that increase your bottom line by 1-2% can add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars at the end of the year.

But how do you tackle restaurant food waste? And is it really costing enough to make the investment worthwhile?

Short answer, yes.

Long answer? Let’s get into it.

The Importance of Managing Your Restaurant Food Waste

Every industry is facing the pinch of inflation right now. Prices of everything seem to be skyrocketing, including raw ingredients you would be using at your restaurant.

Typical QSRs are spending anywhere between 20-40% on food (before inflation), and wasting close to 10% of that — with one line item taking up so much of your expenses, you want to ensure you’re getting the most profit possible.

If you’re not managing your restaurant food waste effectively, you’re also losing money almost immediately. Roughly 4-10% of food purchased by restaurant leadership never actually makes it to customers. This means you’re throwing away up to 10% of your food costs off the top. What other costs in your QSR would you be okay with throwing away that much of it off the top?

There are also reasons to manage your food waste that go beyond your bottom line. It’s bad for the environment. The EPA estimates that U.S. food waste adds up to 170 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions — roughly the same emission as 42 coal-fired power plants.

Proper restaurant food waste management clearly has benefits for both your bottom line and the environment.

Categories of Restaurant Food Waste

For many, people think of food left on plates at the end of meals or produce that spoils when they think of food waste.

But that’s not always the case.

You’ll likely face two major categories of waste in your QSR, which include:

Pre-Consumer Waste:

Pre-consumer waste is food that ends up wasted before it even makes it to your guests. This includes burger patties that are forgotten and spoil if they don’t make it into a freezer, or coffee that goes cold and your team is forced to dump it. This is very much in your team’s control. Optimize food handling practices to ensure that as little food is wasted as possible.

Post-Consumer Waste:

Post-consumer waste is exactly what it sounds like — it’s waste that takes place after the food makes it to the consumer. Consumers leave up to 17% of food with their meals behind. This means that while customers have paid, you could get more meals out of that food if your portion sizes are more in tune with the actual wants of your diners. Monitoring how much food is being wasted post-sale is one of the most important ways to measure if your portion sizes are good, or if they need adjusting.

Understanding the difference is key to knowing how to tackle each, as they’ll require different techniques to minimize them.

9 Ways to Manage Restaurant Food Waste

It’s clear that restaurant food waste is pricey. And with QSR margins tightening in the current financial state, every dollar counts.

So, what do you do to tackle this growing problem? Here are X methods to tackle food waste at your QSR.

1. Conduct a food waste audit

If you don’t measure it, you can’t fix it. And that goes for food waste.

Luckily, conducting your restaurant food waste audit isn’t as messy as it sounds. In this case, you want to track where the food waste is coming from. Divide it up by front and back of house, and simply record the waste — when it happened, how much was wasted, and the staff who reported it.

You can even pull this data directly from your POS. Use the POS data to review voids, discounts, and refunds that led to food waste and discover why this food is being wasted. Discovering the cause will help you determine what to focus on to improve this.

Do this for a set period — a week works well — and then take time to review the results. The findings from your food waste audit will help determine your next steps.

2. Plan

Once you have conducted your food waste audit, it’s time to plan. The audit will show you where your food waste is coming from, and therefore help you focus on what to do about it.

If you see that a lot of food is being wasted after being improperly prepared, maybe you need to review preparation with your team. Or if you find your ingredients are going bad in the fridge or freezer, you may want to check if everything is working properly.

3. Review order accuracy

Order accuracy is a huge culprit of post-consumer restaurant food waste. Once you serve the wrong coffee, bagel, or burger to somebody, you can’t re-serve it or salvage ingredients. Reviewing order accuracy can ensure that you aren’t throwing out perfectly good ingredients and foods based on a team mistake.

Improving order accuracy is also a result of small changes. Have your team focus on repeating the order back to the consumer to ensure they got the meal right. Set up displays that show the team preparing food a visual of what goes into each meal. These small fixes can result in big bottom-line savings.

4. Reduce portion sizes

Are you finding that people are walking out with half of their meal in the to-go bag? Or are the extra-large fries seeming a little too extra? If you find that your portions are resulting in a ton of leftovers or food thrown out after a meal, it may be time to evaluate portion sizes.

This is especially important in QSRs where you have sides that can be scooped in masses, like fries. Even if a number as small as 5% of every extra-large fry order is left over at the end, it only takes 20 orders to have thrown an entire extra-large fry into the trash.

However, it’s extremely important you do this strategically. You don’t want customers to feel that the value of their dollar has dropped and they’re getting less for the same price. Reducing portion sizes shouldn’t be done at the expense of your customers.

5. Store food properly

Improper food storage is a big culprit of food waste before the food even gets onto plates.

This includes labeling any perishable items and the date they go bad, making sure fridges and freezers are securely shut, and maintaining proper storage temperatures.

6. Hire a team you can trust

Seriously.

This one seems obvious, but it’s especially important when it comes to food waste and the cost tied with it.

Employee theft is responsible for 4% of restaurant sales, which accounts for a loss between $3 and $6 billion annually.

Clearly, employees skimming extra coffee and donuts off the top ends up being a huge sunken food cost — and since you don’t profit from it, it’s technically wasted food.

7. Use Technology

You can’t be everywhere, all the time — especially when you own or manage numerous locations of your QSR. But with technology, you don’t have to be.

The right technology makes it easier to figure out where food is being wasted. The guess work gets completely taken out of it!

To show exactly how much the right technology can save you on food waste, we put together a calculator that can show you the savings based on food waste at your business specifically. Chances are, you’ll be shocked at how much money you’re leaving on the table right now.

Show me my food costs savings!

8. Staff Meals

Providing a staff meal is a great way to both reduce food waste and boost team morale, making it an easy win-win.

You don’t have to give employees a free-for-all with staff food. The options don’t have to be limitless, but you can limit your food waste by letting employees choose between a few popular options as a free meal throughout their shift.

Have employees choose between popular meals that you know there are typically leftovers or made from food that goes bad quickly (sides of fries, salads, burgers, etc.). This way, you know you’ll actually be using that food while also providing a great employee benefit.

9. Regularly revisit the numbers

Just like any areas of improvement in your QSR, you can’t look at something once and assume it’s fixed forever. Revisiting your food waste metrics regularly is the key to continued success.

After all, your staff is constantly changing, the technology you use may evolve, and food providers may be swapped. These are just some of the things that impact your food waste, and factors that evolve constantly.

Taking the time to revisit allows you to ensure the best practices you’ve learned stay in practice instead of ending up forgotten and go back to old habits.

Final Thoughts

QSR profit margins are tricky normally, so extra food waste can be detrimental. Knowing where it’s coming from and — more importantly — how to stop it are key ways to improving your bottom line.

With regular reviews and new practices, you’ll see that restaurant food waste costs don’t have to be as high as they are.

Reduce your restaurant food waste with DTiQ

If you’re looking for technology that can immediately start saving roughly 25%, look no further. DTiQ has saved vendors up to 25% annually on food waste, while also improving guest experience, loss prevention, and business security. You can contact us or book a demo to see our technology in action — and the benefits it could bring your QSR immediately.

Marnotrawstwo żywności w restauracjach: 9 sposobów radzenia sobie z tym krytycznym wskaźnikiem

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