Waste Control – the Forgotten Sustainability Revolution?

Have we taken our eye off the issue of food wastage? Hotel And Restaurant Times talks to the champion of waste control in the catering sector – Chef Maurice McGeehan

The concentration of society and business on the environment and greenhouse gas emissions has become a laser focus.

The situation has evolved into the treating of everything to do with reducing carbon emissions and saving energy as a kind of religion; one with its own evangelists embedded in training colleges and companies, spreading the message and implementing the practices of a scientific product that didn’t exist 25 years ago – ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance).

Have we taken our eye off the issue of food wastage?

This isn’t a bad thing: after all, there’s no denying that the planet needs more and more collective effort to try to reverse a seemingly one-way process that has been accelerating for some time. With all of us keeping our eyes on the sustainable/environmental/greenhouse gas emissions horizon however, have we not taken our eye off the issue of food wastage?

Even though waste management is incorporated in the ESG philosophy, practices have evolved that seem to put that aspect into a secondary position.

In the hotel and catering industry, food wastage is arguably the most relevant part of all of that. But does it get treated accordingly? How often do you go into a hotel and see that they’ve eliminated one-use plastics in the bathroom and that they have a policy of only doing the linen every second day, but in the dining room they still have the beloved buffet in action?

Hotels are hot-spots for food wastage

By their very nature, hotels are hot-spots for food wastage and the statistics bear this out. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), of the 708,000 tonnes of food waste generated in Ireland in 2024, over a quarter of it (26%) was generated by hotels. That’s 181,000 tonnes of waste generated by the catering sector alone.

There is earlier research again from the EPA that found plate waste accounting for 41% of food waste in hotels; a figure that rose to 53% for hotel functions.

Why are we putting food on plates that we know people probably aren’t going to eat?’

“For me, one of the biggest questions is, ‘Why are we putting food on plates that we know people probably aren’t going to eat?’” asks Irish Rugby Head Performance Chef Maurice McGeehan.

Originally from Donegal, Maurice has been championing the philosophy of cutting out waste in the catering sector. For him, it’s not a question of whether or not it’s possible – it’s more a question of will. The catering sector doesn’t currently have the will to truly minimise waste.

There is, however, an active culture of ensuring that people have more than enough in the catering business; driven by the truism that customers desire the luxury of excess food. When you’re splashing out in an expensive hotel, it’s about wallowing in waste to a certain extent. Isn’t it?

McGeehan’s extensive and unique experience, however, would strongly suggest that that is not the case; that, if given a chance, customers would prefer to be part of a world where thousands of tonnes of good edible food isn’t simply thrown away.

Chef Maurice McGeehan’s ground-breaking food preparation programme

Having cut his sustainability teeth in California with American short-stay agents Air BnB, Maurice’s ground-breaking food preparation programme caught the attention of the IRFU and, built on the pillars of nutrition and sustainability, he and his team have been perfecting the art of zero or near-zero wastage while helping to keep our top international rugby players in peak condition.

His success has been as inspirational as his continued passion for the subject. The big question now is – How do we go from a maverick performance in one particular food preparation area to bringing that philosophy into practice in all places where food is prepared?

“I think that there has been a good bit of work done in that regard,” says Maurice, “but it’s something that has to come from within and it’s something that has to come from the top as well. From my experience, if it comes from the top down, it’s much easier than trying to go from the bottom up.

Everybody has to have a buy-in on this

“Everybody has to have a buy-in on this and everybody has to understand the mission… changes will have to made because there’s no point in saying that you’re going to do it without having a clear plan of what changes that will entail; of how you’re going to get there. A strategy has to be developed, in other words.

“What I mean by strategy is getting them all on board and getting them involved as well. One of the biggest flaws is in not getting everybody working towards the same goal… it’s much harder to get momentum going if you don’t include everybody from Day One. You need to get all the back-of-house staff – commis chefs, kitchen porters, trainee chefs and all other chefs – to come together and talk about food waste and how you can reduce it. Come up with ideas and set yourselves targets… I’m a big believer in making one step at a time. If you bring too many changes in at once, it doesn’t work.”

Simple but ingenious use cases

In Maurice’s kitchen, a lot of changes have been implemented over time. The attitude begins with steps such as pickling vegetable offcuts in oil instead of putting them in the compost. These can then serve as salad dressing. Instead of throwing away the woody stems from vegetables, they can be gathered, then liquidized and freeze-dried to create powders which are full of natural flavourings and which serve as an organic substitute for MSG.

Aside from these simple but ingenious uses of what most would consider compost material, Maurice also sees multiple opportunities to cut out waste in how food is served to customers.

“Take something as simple as coleslaw,” says Maurice. “How many restaurants automatically put a portion of coleslaw on every plate, even though plenty of customers leave it behind? Why not just ask if they want it?”

He points out a few other changes that can make the world of difference.

• On portion sizes: “Not everyone wants or needs the same amount of food. Offering smaller or three-quarter portions, particularly at lunchtime, could make a big difference. Why should everyone automatically get the same portion when people’s appetites are so different?”
• Swap, Don’t Waste: “This is really about giving customers more choice. If someone doesn’t like coleslaw, pea purée or a particular vegetable, why automatically put it on their plate? Give them the option to leave it off or swap it for something they’ll actually eat.”
• Front-of-house staff: “These are the people clearing the plates and seeing what’s coming back every day. If customers are consistently leaving the same vegetables, garnishes or sides, that information needs to get back to the kitchen. There’s no point continuing to serve something just because that’s how we’ve always done it.”
• Menu design: “Make it clear what’s included in a dish and give customers more choice over sides and accompaniments. Sometimes a small change in how a dish is described or ordered can prevent unnecessary waste.”
• Measure the waste: “It’s not enough to know how many kilos of food are being thrown away. We need to know what that food actually is. Is it chips, vegetables, bread or garnishes? Once you identify what’s consistently coming back, you can make changes to the menu, portions or service and then measure whether those changes are working.”
• Get the whole team involved: “Chefs, kitchen porters and front-of-house staff will often have some of the best ideas because they’re dealing with food waste every day. Getting everyone involved and encouraging that communication between the kitchen and front of house is really important.”

Another important aspect of waste reduction is to not get drawn into blaming customers.

“One thing I feel quite strongly about is that we need to be careful about putting all the responsibility on the customer. Rather than blaming people for wasting food, we should be making it easier for them not to waste it in the first place,” says Maurice, citing again the example of giving customers the opportunity to say no to the coleslaw.

“And there’s a very real commercial argument here too,” adds Maurice. “By the time food comes back uneaten, the business has already paid for the ingredients; storage, labour, preparation, cooking and service, only to pay again to dispose of it. It makes absolutely no sense, either environmentally or commercially.”

Change needs to happen on the ground

So how and where does the revolution begin? Does the Government need to get involved?

“Change needs to happen on the ground,” says Maurice. “I think that the Government might be slow in enacting things but real action can be done on a weekly basis.

“Going on my experience, incremental changes are always best; making too many changes can just clog up the machine and it can just result in people saying, ‘Oh, this just didn’t work!’ Planning is the key to it all. We’re in autumn now, for example. If you’re looking at your autumn and winter menus, you know what ingredients you’re going to be using. You know what your menu will be and you have a fair idea what your by-products are going to be.

“Start working on the by-products and start changing your chef’s mindset on what by-products are. We need to start to look at them as natural ingredients – not just a trimming that gets thrown away. Then figure out ways in which you can utilize or process these by-products and incorporate them into menus.”

A lot of vegetable waste goes into the bin, Maurice points out, because they’re too fibrous or too tough. The solution he has found is to dehydrate them. Thus, things like woody stalks or beetroot or carrot skins are transformed into nutritious powders that can give depth to sauces, seasonings, soups breads, dips… multiple applications from waste food.

All the time that a restaurant or catering establishment is engaging in this revolutionary practice, they should ensure to share their progress and their actions with the public; using their social media platforms to inform and educate as they go along and letting customers entering the establishment know what they are doing and how they’re doing it.

“What we do now has become second nature to us,” says Maurice. “It involves everybody – everybody knows what they’re doing, everyone knows what’s good enough to keep. The dehydrators are going flat out all the time… when we hear from contractors who come into our place about the levels of food wastage out there, it actually makes me sick to the stomach.

“As an industry and society, we spend a lot of time talking about what to do with food waste, when we should be spending more time figuring out how to stop creating it in the first place.”

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