Quick-service restaurant (QSR) owners and managers across the country know the best food starts with high-quality ingredients that don’t come cheap in today’s economy. The good news is, especially with rising costs, this provides an often-overlooked opportunity for your QSR to make a substantial increase in profit by tracking and reducing restaurant food waste.
According to the USDA, the U.S. generated approximately 133 billion pounds of restaurant food waste in 2010, cutting a staggering $162 billion off profits. In fact, the average commercial kitchen wastes between 4% and 10% of the food it purchases before it reaches the table. And that doesn’t even factor in the costs of labor to purchase, inventory, prepare or serve the food.
If you’re looking for ways to increase your profit, it’s time to figure out how to deal with food waste in your restaurant every day.
Why reducing food waste in restaurants matters
Reducing restaurant food waste can increase your profits, reduce environmental harm, build a reputation for social responsibility, and keep your operation in compliance with state or local regulations.
- Profit increases
QSRs are for-profit businesses, and the results of cutting restaurant food waste on the bottom-line are obvious and undeniable. According to a review of 114 restaurants across 12 countries, every $1 invested in reducing food waste in restaurants resulted in $7 of profit, on average, with 75% of operations recouping their investment in the first year. - Environmental impact
Many resources go into growing food, including energy, fuel and water. Waste accounts for one-third of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions and generates 8% of greenhouse gases annually, through transportation and decomposition. When food ends up in landfills, it generates methane, a powerful greenhouse gas 25 times stronger than carbon dioxide. - Social responsibility and customer perception
Doing the right thing is good for everyone, but it is also good for business. Sustainability and how restaurants deal with food waste are hot-button issues among customers, who are demonstrating greater awareness and intention with their purchasing power. When restaurants play a role in addressing community societal issues, including hunger and food insecurity, customers take notice. - Regulatory compliance
Food waste is such a problem that five states currently restrict the amount of food waste restaurants and other institutions are allowed to generate, with other states either conducting restaurant food waste studies or closely observing the results of the top five. Other regulations surround how waste is handled, including the separation of organic waste from other materials.Reducing the overall amount of waste your operation produces keeps you in compliance with regulations and means you’ll need less labor to process and dispose of the waste, too.
How to reduce food waste in quick-service restaurants
There are many areas to consider when trying to reduce food waste in restaurants, including using proper breading techniques, maintaining your frying equipment, handling cooking oil, considering additional equipment for operational efficiency, managing and predicting your inventory, and repurposing or donating excess food and ingredients. Let’s take a closer look at each of these.
- Equipment for operational efficiency
There are equipment options, such as vacuum sealers, marinators and composters, that can improve your workflow to reduce time, labor and food waste. These added efficiencies also allow you to respond more quickly to increases in demand.
Vacuum sealers preserve fresh foods longer, allowing you to benefit from discounted pricing for larger quantity purchases. Marinators achieve the same amount of flavor as overnight marination with fewer ingredients and less time, reducing wasted food due to over-preparation. And composters help reduce the amount of food that is sent to a landfill, significantly reducing methane gas emissions.
- Inventory management and predictability
Most QSRs rely on past experience to determine the amount of food to prepare in advance, but this leaves room for under-preparation, which can lead to lost sales, or over-preparation, which can lead to wasted food. But if you’re trying to figure out how to deal with food waste in your restaurant, it might be time to consider other methods.
Inventory management systems can often be tied to point of sale systems so you can always be notified when it’s time to order something before you run out.
Food trucks are a good example of operations that follow a completely different workflow. With precious little room to store prepped food, they make almost all their products to order, creating little restaurant food waste. If your operation relies on time- and labor-consuming processes, such as marinating and breading, automation can get the job done with a fraction of time and effort, while providing more flavor consistency and allowing you to prep foods in smaller batches.
AyrKing’s Mixstir, for example, can prepare batters, liquid seasoning mixes and any menu item that requires constant stirring without injecting air in the product and disturbing the flavor profile.
Our DrumRoll can automate your breading process, using 13% less breading and 5% less fryer oil, and providing 32% greater consistency and 25% faster production time than hand breading.
And AyrKing’s automated marinators can reduce the time needed to marinate proteins from hours to minutes through a timed tumbling process.
- Proper breading techniques
A great place to start reducing ingredient waste is by observing how your kitchen staff handles ingredients during the breading process. Proper coating techniques minimize product loss during various stages of the breading and frying processes.
Automating the sifting process with an AyrKing Breader Blender Sifter (BBS) eliminates most variations in technique between workers, maximizing breading efficiency while ensuring consistent coating and flavor profiles from shift to shift.
The BBS makes it fast and easy to extract doughballs from the mix, preserving more good breading in every batch, and comes with a convenient cover to keep leftover breading fresh overnight. Consistently producing chicken with the right amount of breading also helps extend the life of your cooking oil.
- Fryer maintenance
Purchasing the right frying equipment that has the temperature controls and agitation mechanisms appropriate for the foods you serve can help achieve more consistent and efficient frying results with less risk of over- or undercooked products. It’s also important to regularly clean and maintain your fryers to keep them operating optimally and extend the life of your cooking oil.
- Cooking oil conservation and disposal
Conserving cooking oil isn’t just about cost — it’s also important for the environment. Because producing oil contributes to deforestation, chemical runoff, pollution and emissions, maximizing your operation’s oil efficiency reduces environmental impact. When you’ve made the most of your oil, and it’s reached the end of its useful life, it needs to be properly disposed of through oil collection or recycling programs.
- Repurposing or donating excess
Thinking outside of the box can inject some fun into your menu and allow you to repurpose dry breading with other ingredients, such as running a special on fried pickles or fried zucchini. If repurposing isn’t an option because you’re a part of a chain that requires strict adhesion to set menu offerings, you can always look into partnering with local food banks or food rescue organizations to ensure your excess doesn’t go to waste.
As an added incentive toward donating, you can gain affiliation with charitable organizations you help support as well as opportunities for posts on social media, which can positively impact customer perception.
When less food is wasted, everyone wins
Taking the time to review your processes to find and improve areas where your operation can reduce food waste can significantly affect your operation. Not only is figuring out how to deal with food waste in your restaurant good for the environment and for generating customer loyalty but it also boosts profits and strengthens your brand’s reputation.
Want to find out how much an AyrKing Breader Blender Sifter could save your operation? Find out with our BBS Savings Calculator.
