Avoiding food waste in other businesses

The diversity of businesses in NSW means food gets wasted for many different reasons. No matter what type or size of business you operate, it is likely that food makes up a component of the waste generated.

All businesses – even small offices – can work towards reducing the amount of food waste produced. This section outlines some of the ways you can take action and help tackle food waste.

Many businesses serve food even though they aren't in the hospitality or food retail sector. For example hospitals, nursing homes, childcare centres and recreation/activity centres serve people one to three meals a day. Other businesses might order catering for staff or board functions, conferences, workshops and meetings. Whatever the reason, these tips will help you avoid food waste.

• Carefully order so as to not have excess stock or catered food
• Prepare standard recipe cards for kitchen staff to follow
• Carefully consider portion sizes
• Offer different serving sizes to customers (staff, clients, etc)
• Plan and develop menus to ensure the food will meet with the customers'/clients' expectations during winter and summer weather
• Look out for food items that are consistently uneaten, such as side dishes, garnishes and condiments and stop serving/ordering them
• Ensure refrigerator (3-4 degrees Celsius) and freezer (minus 18 degrees Celsius) temperatures are correct and check the temperature and seals on each regularly
• Ensure due diligence with labelling, storing and rotating stock
• If you are a food manufacturer, ensure your equipment and processing techniques are as effective and efficient as possible. This will help to avoid food being damaged or mislabelled
• Consider if there are any options for manufacturing by-products
• When ordering catering for events or meetings, work closely with the supplier to order the right amount of food for the number of people attending. If you have leftovers, offer them to other staff.

In offices and any other workplace where staff bring or buy their lunch, encourage food waste avoidance by:

• establishing a food waste avoidance team or staff sustainability team to motivate and encourage staff to bring leftovers for lunch
• putting up Love Food Hate Waste posters in the kitchen and lunchroom
• engaging with staff during morning or afternoon tea breaks, birthday celebrations etc about the issue of food waste. This could be a short talk on a specific issue like the environmental impacts, the work of food charities or an informal chat to swap tips and ideas for re-inventing leftovers as well as recipe ideas.

Food donation

If you regularly have edible food left over ranging from café salads and sandwiches through to pallets of tinned goods, the best option is to donate it to a registered food charity. Sydney-based food charities like OzHarvest collect edible food and distribute it to those in need. Organising a collection is easy – see the section on food charities. In regional areas, a local branch of Reap Food Rescue may be able to suggest a suitable recipient and put you in touch with a local charity.

If you have space on-site you may be able to set up your own system using a worm farm/vermiculture, compost bin or similar in-vessel processor. On-site collection and processing of food waste can reduce the costs of transporting and disposing of organic material.

There are many advantages to processing and treating organic materials on-site, including:

• reducing need for skip bins, which in turn reduces other disposal costs
• reducing odour on-site
• reducing the greenhouse gas emissions organic material causes when sent to landfill (and the emissions caused by transporting waste)
• reducing other environmental issues associated with landfill, for example leachate (a liquid that moves through landfill and can cause contamination) and odour
• recognising food waste as a resource by producing recycled organics products. For example, recycled organics like compost and vermicast (from your worm farm) are used to improve soil fertility on farms and market gardens, as they return valuable nutrients and carbon to the soil.

Note: Check with your local council before setting up a large scale on-site processing system – you may need to follow environmental controls or seek approval.

There are commercially operated food waste processing facilities which take food waste and process it into compost, fertiliser or in some instances electricity. If your business is interested in sending its food waste offsite for commercial composting and food processing you can either establish a contract directly with the owner of the processing facility, or you can incorporate food waste collection and processing into your existing waste management contract. In either case you should insist upon receiving regular reports from the processor on the volume of waste processed and the products that were made. You can find a service provider at Business Recycling.

When researching the options, make sure potential collection contractors provide a dedicated food waste collection service and can supply suitable waste collection receptacles and signage that meet your needs, especially if you have space constraints.

If you already have a contract with a waste collection company check whether you can make any changes or additions to the existing arrangement. If not, you may need to wait for the current waste collection contract to expire.