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Welcome to the weekly AST Briefing.

We’re wrapping up March with the second and final part of the two-part series on sustainable food systems.

While this week’s article outlines strategies to reduce and dispose of food waste, it’s important to keep in mind that the best waste is no waste.

Feeding Innovation: Inside Hospitality's Fight Against Food Waste

Why reducing food waste matters

A Lost Opportunity to Feed the World

On a global scale, approximately one-third of all food produced for human consumption goes to waste, yet hunger afflicts one in ten, according to the United Nations agencies.  

This paradox is even more pronounced in Asia, where 375 million people grappled with hunger in 2020, a number larger than the entire population of the United States. The COVID-19 crisis has only worsened the crisis. 

Reducing food waste helps lower carbon emissions. 

Moral reasons aside, food waste emits methane upon decomposition, contributing to global warming. If quantified as a nation, food waste would rank third in carbon emissions, trailing only the U.S. and China, per the World Food Programme. 

It makes economic sense to reduce food waste.

The Bangkok-headquartered food waste prevention tech and consultancy organization LightBlue Consulting shares that a hotel serving approximately 2,000 covers a day would waste the equivalent of $400,000 to $500,000 a year. In 2023, they succeeded in getting their clients to collectively save over four million U.S. dollars by implementing food waste reduction strategies. 

First, understand that reducing food waste isn't about micromanaging every ounce of food. It's about gaining insights into your operations to make smarter decisions. 

Let’s now deep dive into the proven framework to prevent and reduce food waste. 

The Four-Step Framework 

1. Get your team on board by talking about the ‘why’

2. Monitor to reduce waste

3. Donate if there’s excess

4. Dispose of food responsibly

First step: Get your team onboard 

LightBlue Consulting runs a series of workshops to train the F&B teams at hotels through its proprietary FIT Food Waste Solution program. The key is to reframe the mindset — reducing food waste boosts the bottom line. 

Then, providing the kitchen teams with the right tools, such as recipe and menu engineering technologies, can optimize operations, enhance cost transparency, and ensure consistent quality across recipes and menus. This strategic approach brings us closer to eliminating food waste in hotels altogether.

Next, monitor food production to prevent and reduce waste

As the saying goes, “you can’t manage what you don’t measure,” start with a waste audit.

A good waste audit process should provide you with insights to: 

• Identify where and why waste is happening. 

• Set realistic goals for the reduction. 

• Select the right strategies and tools to help you achieve those goals.

CASE STUDY: Easia Travel’s Recipe for Reducing Food Waste on its Tours. Go deeper here.

CASE STUDY: Jetwing Hotels Redefines Buffet Dining to Minimize Food Waste. Go deeper here.

SPOTLIGHT: LightBlue’s Food Intel Tech (FIT) helps restaurants cut food spending and lower carbon emissions. Go deeper here.

If there’s excess, donate 

Here are some great organizations that work with hospitality companies to transport excess food to those in need. 

• Second Harvest Asia

• Scholars of Sustenance Thailand 

Finally, dispose of your food waste if you must, responsibly

It is imaginably difficult to be truly a zero-waste food business. If food waste is inevitable, experts recommend that restaurants and hotels do whatever they can to avoid throwing food in landfills to curb methane emissions.

Strategy 1: Composting

Under the visionary founder Andrew Nixon’s leadership, the Cempedak Island team segregates waste into several bins, including food scraps, paper, and bottles, allowing for recycling and upcycling efforts. 

Leftover rice is fed to livestock. The resort also uses black soldier flies for larval production to produce nutrient-rich fertilizers to feed the soil.

Strategy 2: Anaerobic Digestion

In Sri Lanka, Jetwing Hotels uses biogas digesters at properties with sufficient space. 

These digesters transform food waste into biogas through controlled microbial activity, providing an alternative to liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) for cooking in staff cafeterias or hotel kitchens. Where onsite treatment is not feasible, food waste is sent to local piggeries as animal fodder.

We are proud to present our speakers:

• Susan Santos de Cardenas, Southeast Asia Partner & Representative for Green Destinations, Vice Chair of Asian Ecotourism Network, and President & CEO of Society for Sustainable Tourism

• Cleofe Albiso, Managing Director of Megaworld Hotels & Resorts

Together with these two esteemed changemakers, we will delve into “How will sustainability integration future-proof your hospitality business?”

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