Turn waste into insight, track, reduce, and act on food waste with data that drives cost savings, sustainability impact, and operational improvement.
Food waste is edible food that is discarded instead of being eaten.
The FAO defines food waste as "food appropriate for human consumption being discarded, whether it is kept beyond its expiry date or left to spoil."
Food waste management focuses on preventing waste at the source, then managing unavoidable waste responsibly to reduce cost and environmental impact.
This typically includes:
The most effective way to reduce food waste is to measure it accurately.
Historically, food waste tracking has not been a priority for commercial kitchens.
As a result, many kitchens don't know how much food they throw away — or how much it costs. Where tracking does exist, it is often manual, time-consuming, and inaccurate, leading businesses to significantly underestimate their true food waste levels.
For hospitality operators, robust food waste tracking is essential to cut food costs, reduce carbon emissions, and improve operational efficiency.
Advances in technology have transformed food waste management.
Today, software combined with kitchen-ready hardware enables accurate, automated tracking in busy kitchen environments.
In 2019, Winnow began automating food waste management using AI, allowing kitchens to track waste consistently without manual data entry.
With automation handling most data collection, food waste management follows a simple process:
Food waste is a major contributor to climate changeand affects every country.
Greenhouse gases are generated throughout the food system, including methane released when food waste goes to landfill. According to the FAO, if food waste were a country, it would be the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, after China and the United States.
Food waste also represents a massive misuse of land and resources — an area larger than China is used to grow food that is never eaten. At the same time, over 800 million people globally face food insecurity, making waste reduction both an environmental and ethical priority.
Food waste occurs across the supply chain, but commercial kitchens play a critical role.
Once food reaches the kitchen, waste is most often driven by overbuying, poor planning, and overproduction. Research by Oakdene Hollins shows that 66% of kitchen food waste is pre-consumer, while 34% is post-consumer.
While solutions like anaerobic digestion can recover energy, the greatest impact comes from preventing surplus food before it is wasted.
Hotels and catering operations face particularly high waste due to buffets, events, and advance production. As sustainability expectations rise, reducing food waste has become a core ESG and cost-control priority.
At Marriott's Grosvenor House Dubai, Winnow helped the culinary team understand exactly what was being wasted at each service.
In the first year:
For contract caterers, food waste management can deliver 3–8% food cost savings while significantly reducing emissions. Research from the World Economic Forum and Ipsos shows 86% of people want a shift toward a more sustainable world, accelerating demand for action.
Reducing food waste starts with leadership. Management plays a critical role in setting expectations, processes, and a culture focused on waste prevention in the kitchen.
The most effective approach follows the food recovery hierarchy, prioritising prevention first and disposal last.
Most restaurants fall into two broad categories, and each carries different food waste risks.
These kitchens prepare 50–75% of food before service, including:
Because demand is harder to forecast in these environments, overproduction is a major source of food waste.
À la carte kitchens cook meals to order, with only some items (such as sauces or vegetables) prepared in advance. While waste risk is lower, prep errors and plate waste still occur.
Most kitchens estimate advance production using a simple formula:
(Projected usage × buffer %) − quantity on hand
Before ordering, kitchens complete an inventory check. Once a food waste audit and plate waste analysis are added, planning becomes far more accurate and waste can be reduced.
Food safety laws vary by region but are often strict, especially for cooked food and meat products.
In the UK, buffet-style pizza restaurants must discard food after a short holding period due to hygiene and temperature regulations.
In the US, states such as Massachusetts have introduced food waste bans for large generators, as landfill capacity declines. This has pushed restaurants to reduce waste at the source and increase food donation.
For food that cannot be sold at full price, restaurants can:
Many hospitality businesses are stepping up in times of need, as highlighted in our Hospitality Heroes stories.
The most effective way to manage food waste is to measure it and act on the data.
Conducting a food waste audit helps kitchens understand when, where, and why food is being wasted — so preventative measures can be put in place.
During service, try to identify:
Answering these questions often reveals the true financial impact of food waste and enables better planning, purchasing, and production decisions.
Ongoing manual food audits are time-consuming and often inconsistent.
