FMJ.CO.UK CATERING FOCUS
In 2019 reducing the amount of single use plastics stole
the sustainable limelight. However, in 2020 we expect food
waste to gradually creep up client’s agendas.”
FEBRUARY 2020 29
sectors, was shown to be more than £14 for
every £1 invested by a business in reducing
food loss and waste.
SO WHAT CAN FMS AND THEIR CATERERS
DO TO ADDRESS THE PROBLEM?
Simon Biggs, a partner at catering and
facilities management consultancy the
Litmus Partnership, has sat on the steering
group for WRAP. He believes the main
challenge in reducing food waste at work is
keeping it on the agenda.
He explains: “Over the past number of
years, food waste has been given a real
focus and a lot of positive work has been
done across all sectors of the industry.
Nevertheless, focus can o en be shi ed
away by the latest hot topic, such as
reducing single-use plastics, removing
disposable co ee cups and tackling health
and wellbeing, all of which are important.
“However, in the latest statistics from
WRAP(4), the UK still produces £20 billion
of food waste per year, so this challenge
isn’t going away and needs to be kept
firmly on the agenda. Of course, you’d hope
that caterers are still implementing good
practice, but the real challenge now is about
educating society so that reducing food
waste is an everyday way of life.
“This is even more important for the
contract catering industry as food provided
in sta restaurants can o en be ‘budgetfriendly’,
with a meal being priced similar
to that of a sandwich on the high street. In
essence, food can be very a ordable and
therefore easy to throw away as there’s not
a huge value on it. The importance of food
waste, and how it’s managed, needs to be
taught so we understand how it a ects the
environment we live in.”
From a caterer’s perspective: “Food
waste is essentially ‘money in the bin’” says
Sally Grimes, Quality Standards Manager
at Bartlett Mitchell, “so it’s important that
culinary teams have the knowledge to be
able to work creatively with ingredients and
produce, to ensure they are not wasted and
thrown away.
She continues: “To help reduce food
waste we run a quarterly workshop called
#Wasted. Here we hand out an ever-growing
recipe bank to the teams which shows
them delicious recipes for items that would
usually find their way into the bin, anything
from cucumber end pickles, herb stem salsa
and oil, braised broccoli stems, core piccalilli
or our signature porridge breads.”
“From our experience and in order of
importance, food waste reduction is firstly
a financial imperative, then
ethical, closely followed
by environmental”, says
Ruston Toms, Founding
Director, Blue Apple
Catering.
“In 2019 reducing
the amount of single
use plastics stole
the sustainable
limelight.
However, in 2020
we expect food
waste to gradually
creep up client’s
agendas.”
MANAGING
UNPREDICTABILITY
From the FM’s
perspective, Simone
Fenton-Jarvis, Workplace
Services Consultancy Director
at Ricoh, feels that caterers need
to ensure “they don’t over-cater in
a world of agile working and working
lunches, with people planning their own
meals and taking le overs to work to
reduce their own food waste.”
Yeshna Mistry, Lead Sustainability and
CSR at Vacherin, agrees that the primary
challenge for caterers is managing
unpredictability. “We have to be able to
cater to everyone and have enough choice,
even for those who are arriving late in the
food service. You don’t want a customer
to arrive near the end of lunch service and
find there is a single salad le when they
are hungry.
“With flexible working, we don’t always
know how many people are likely to be
in the o ice on any given day. Some days
are more predictable – for example, we
see more people working from home on
a Friday – but there are events like work
parties that we can’t predict, and we might
only see half the normal number of people
in the o ice the following day.”
To help manage demand, Vacherin has
launched a click and collect scheme via
an app so that hot drinks are prepared to
order, and they will soon be broadening this
service to cover food and smoothie orders.
Ana Svab, Corporate Responsibility
Manager, Sodexo UK and Ireland, believes
that embedding a sense of responsibility
into an organisation is the first step for any
food waste reduction programme. “Our
sustainability roadmap is fully embedded
into the way we do business. We invest time,
money and e ort into ensuring our teams
are engaged and have the knowledge and
tools to work with our clients, consumers
and suppliers to help reduce the impact our
operations have on the environment.”
Sally Grimes advises that buy-in is o en
better supported through the provision
of evidence. “At some sites, we will weigh
our waste. We use technology and a set of
weighing scales with a tablet dashboard for