Do Restaurants Reuse Foods: What about leftover foods?

If you are reading this article right now, i.e., having an internet connection, you are luckier than many worldwide who could not afford food last night. In this regard, the topic is worth discussing, and we will discuss that topic in this article. We all waste food in some way or another, but the amount of food wasted by restaurants is huge. Food will be wasted – that is for sure! How that can be reduced or how the wasted materials are reused are the questions. In general, restaurants do reuse the raw materials but do not reuse customers’ leftover foods.

Food is something that shouldn’t be wasted at any cost. So, restaurants do reuse raw materials within the day to minimize the wastage of food. But unfortunately, restaurants can never reuse the leftover foods from customers’ plates. However, untouched cooked foods go for charity most of the time.

What do restaurants do with customers’ leftover foods?

It is unhealthy and unhygienic to reuse leftover foods as they are already cooked, and the germs from a customer’s mouth touch the food. So, there is nothing much that restaurants can do about it.

• Feeding street animals: ‘He who feeds hungry animals, feeds his own soul.’ – Charlie Chaplin. So, feeding hungry stray animals is a very good option to put the leftover foods to good use.

• Feeding animals is EPA’s (USA) third tier of the food recovery hierarchy: It is of low cost and also valuable for protecting the environment. A huge amount of stray animals which are devoid of love and care are highly dependent on leftover foods or dustbins’ foods. It is better to serve them fresh leftover foods rather than rotten dumped foods. So, feeding the animals is one of the great options.

• Composting: Composting is a method to break down the organic materials in nature. Most of the food wastages are purely organic and can be used to landfill those. Over 40% of food in restaurants in the USA and India each gets wasted every year. One of the solutions that can curb this problem is by compositing them. Vegetables, fruits, eggshells, pasta, etc., can make soil nutritious, which is useful for plants. Though meats, dairy, etc., should not be composited. One can curb wastage with very little knowledge of what should be composite and what not.

• Throw away: Just throwing away all the food is clearly the worst option that can be done with leftover foods. In the UK, it is estimated that almost 320 billion meals get wasted each year. There are so many reasons, though, for this. Some restaurants simply do not donate foods because of the lack of liabilities, food banks often do not accept over-cooked foods, and small restaurants cannot donate due to small amounts of food wastage. So, there are reasons why the foods are thrown away just like that. Almost 80% of foods get thrown away each year.

What do restaurants do with extra raw materials?

Not only are the foods wasted by the customers, but the raw materials for cooking a meal can also get extra. These extra materials are also reused in many different ways.

1. To make other dishes: The number of customers per day can vary, and the types of foods ordered by the customers vary. Thus, sometimes it happens to have a deviation from the average calculation of cooking foods. So, restaurants use raw materials to make other dishes if the requirements of some particular dishes are less.
2. To cook for the next day: If the quality of the ingredients stays perfect (can be put in the freezer) for the next day, then those leftover raw materials can be put into use to make dishes for the next day.
3. Donating to charity: The restaurants associated with surplus food distribution agencies donate the extra raw materials to charitable organizations. There are food banks, food pantries, and food rescue programs where these can be sent.
4. Donating to pet shelters: As mentioned before, the restaurants can give away food to the pet shelters where the animals can be fed freely.

Health department regulations on reusing foods in restaurants

“India is the second largest food producer in the world, but on Global Hunger Index 2014, India ranked 103rd out of the world’s 119th hungriest countries. Due to some protocols, food businesses also destroy food with smaller shelf life. Prevention of food waste and promotion of surplus food distribution is a global concern,” FSSAI said.

FSSAI (Food Safety and Standards Authority of India) is responsible for maintaining the quality and managing food wastage in India. From 1st July 2020, a scheme called ‘Save Food Share Food Share Joy’ was initiated to reduce food wastage.

Indian Food Sharing Alliance (IFSA) was created to create an ecosystem among surplus food distribution agencies, food companies, and beneficiaries. FSSAI stated that it would be mandatory for all surplus food distribution agencies to register on the food license portal. In 2019, there were strict regulations on cooking oil regarding the quality and number of times one can reuse oil.

How to reduce food waste in a restaurant?

1. Cooking after receiving an order: This reason seems very trivial. I mean, if you pre-cook something even before the order, then what do you expect? In restaurants, due to a massive number of orders every day, certain things are kept pre-cooked. Instead of cooking beforehand, skilled or more employees can be hired to avoid pre-cooking and wastage of food.
2. Awareness board inside the restaurants: To avoid food wastage, it is better to have proper technical knowledge of using raw materials, reusing leftovers, or optimizing the usage of all ingredients for cooking. For big restaurants, it is advisable to deploy an awareness board inside.

Conclusion

Food wastage is one of the main problems nowadays. Millions of tons of food get wasted while people cannot even afford water and are dying due to a lack of quality food or basic nutritious food. We discussed food wastage in restaurants and ways to avoid that. But, it is not only about the restaurants; all individuals should also check the amount of waste food. The reusing or recycling processes are pretty straightforward. Hence, though the article is about restaurants, it is also essential to concentrate on personal wastage.