QSR July 2022

SHORT ORDER

Food waste can fast become a convoluted debate. There are enough statistics and survey points to bury even the most informed operator. So we’ve cut through some of the noise to bring you a collection worth highlighting.

U.S. restaurants generate an estimated 22–33 billion pounds of food waste each year. About 4–10 percent of food purchased by restaurants is wasted before reaching the consumer ( NRDC ).

WHERE OUR WASTE COMES FROM:

43 %

Ahalf a pound of food is wasted per meal in restaurants , whether it’s from what is left on a customer’s plate, or in the kitchen itself (GreenBlue).

HOMES

RESTAURANTS, GROCERS, FOODSERVICE COMPANIES

2 % 16 % 40 %

FARMS

U.S. food waste is responsible for the equivalent of the emissions of 37 million, or one in seven, cars (Natural Resources Defense Council).

MANUFACTURERS

(Feeding America)

$ 162 ƛ

The restaurant industry loses $162 billion annually thanks to wasted food ( USDA ).

55

%

85 %

40 %

Roughly 85 percent of the food that isn’t used in a typical restaurant is thrown out. With more than 42 million food insecure people in our country, there’s no mystery why this is a problem (GreenBlue)— reducing food waste by 15 percent could provide enough sustenance to feed more than 25 million people , annually ( USDA ).

On average, diners leave 17 percent of their meals uneaten and 55 percent of edible leftovers are left at the restaurant (Cornell University Food and Brand Lab).

America wastes roughly 40 percent of its food ( NRDC ).

While the world wastes about 1.4 billion tons of food every year, the U.S. discards more food than any other country in the world: nearly 80 billion pounds every year ( EPA ). That equates to 219 pounds of waste per person.

= &

The biggest concerns for most restaurants when it comes to food donations (41 percent of respondents in a ChefHero survey) are liability and transportation .

TRASH BIN WITH FOOD WASTE: ADOBE STOCK / LIGHTFIELD STUDIOS, FOOD SCALE: ADOBE STOCK / DESIGNER, VEGETABLES IN BOWL: ADOBE STOCK / BY PRIYANKA, CAR: ADOBE STOCK / RASHADALIYEV, FOOD WASTE: ADOBE STOCK / BY PRIYANKA, MAP OF USA: ADOBE STOCK / BY HL, TRASH BIN ICON: ADOBE STOCK / BY JANIS ABOLINS, PAN: ADOBE STOCK / BY MISSBOBBIT, HOME: ADOBE STOCK / SATHAPORN, STORE: ADOBE STOCK / TELMANBAGIROV, BARN: ADOBE STOCK / MARTIALRED, FACTORY: ADOBE STOCK / MARC, MONEY: ADOBE STOCK / JACARTOON, SALAD: ADOBE STOCK / PRIYANKA, FOOD DONATIONS: ADOBE STOCK / BSD STUDIO, RISK LEVEL ICON: ADOBE STOCK / LYSENKO.A, COURIER: ADOBE STOCK / LEREMY

10

JULY 2022 | QSR | www.qsrmagazine.com