How to reduce food waste in a restaurant kitchen

Every bin bag of food that leaves your kitchen is money you've already spent: on the ingredients, the delivery, the chef's time and the gas. Most kitchens don't know how much they throw away, so they can't tell whether a new menu, a new supplier or a new prep routine is making things better or worse.

The good news is that the fixes are mostly habits, not equipment. Here's how to measure your waste, cut it, and stay on the right side of the UK's food waste rules.

Start by measuring: the waste log

WRAP, the UK waste and resources charity, runs a programme for hospitality called Guardians of Grub. Its approach is Target, Measure, Act:

1. Target: set a realistic goal. Guardians of Grub suggests starting with the international goal of halving food waste by 2030, or something more ambitious, with milestones along the way.
2. Measure: record what you throw away every day, split into spoilage, preparation, plate waste and other.
3. Act: after a couple of weeks or a month of data, look at where most of the waste is, agree a few simple fixes with the team, try them, and keep the ones that work.

Guardians of Grub has free tools for this, including a 7-day tracker sheet and a spreadsheet calculator.

A simple daily waste log

Four caddies or bins in the kitchen, labelled, and a set of scales. At the end of each day, weigh each one and write it down.

• Spoilage: out of date, gone off, freezer burn, dropped.
• Preparation: peelings, trim, bones, over-production that can't be used.
• Plate waste: what comes back from the pass on customers' plates.
• Other: anything that doesn't fit, such as staff food that wasn't eaten.

The "main items" column is where the money is. "4kg spoilage" tells you little; "4kg spoilage: two trays of salmon past use-by" tells you to look at your fish order.

Cut spoilage: ordering, FIFO and labelling

Order to what you'll use

• Order against forecast covers, not last week's order sheet.
• For short-life stock (fish, salad, dairy), order more often in smaller amounts if your suppliers allow it.
• Check deliveries properly: refuse anything damaged, warm or short-dated. Our food delivery checks guide covers what to look for.

First in, first out

FIFO means the oldest stock is used first. New deliveries go behind or below what's already there, never on top. It sounds obvious, but in a busy walk-in on a Friday the new case often ends up at the front.

Label everything

Every prepped item and every opened pack gets a label with what it is, when it was made or opened, and when it must be used by. GOV.UK explains the difference that matters: use-by dates are about safety, and food past its use-by isn't safe to eat; best before dates are about quality, and food is usually still safe afterwards. Bin anything past its use-by; think twice before binning best-before stock. Our food labelling and day dots guide has a labelling system you can copy.

Cut prep waste: plan to covers, not habit

Most over-production comes from prepping the same amount every day regardless of bookings.

• Prep to forecast. Look at bookings and last year's same day. A wet Tuesday in February doesn't need Saturday's mise en place.
• Batch little and often. Prep sauces and garnishes in smaller batches through service rather than one big batch at 10am.
• Use the whole ingredient. Trim from one dish can become a special, a soup, staff food or stock, as long as it's handled and stored safely.
• Write down what's left at close. If the same tub of coleslaw comes back every night, prep less of it.

Example: Sunday roasts at a 70-cover pub

Picture a food-led pub in Cheshire cooking six beef joints every Sunday out of habit. Two weeks of the waste log show several kilos of cooked beef binned most weeks. The fix is to size the cook to the bookings at 10am, with a smaller joint held back for walk-ins. Keep logging, and the next month's figures tell you whether the roast ran short or the bin got lighter.

Cut plate waste: portions and menu

Plate waste is the most visible waste and the most useful feedback.

• Watch what comes back. If half the side salad comes back on most plates, change it or drop it.
• Check portion sizes. Bigger isn't always better value for the customer or for you. Offer smaller portions or sides where it makes sense.
• Offer choice. "Chips or new potatoes?" saves both being half-eaten.
• Ask front of house. Servers hear "too much" and "didn't like the sauce" long before you see it in the bin.

The law: separating food waste in each UK nation

Cutting waste saves money. Separating what's left is, in most of the UK, a legal requirement. The rules differ by nation.

Check your local council's and waste contractor's guidance too. Once you're separating food waste, your contractor's collection weights are a free second measure of how your waste is trending.

A 30-day plan to cut kitchen waste

Week 1: measure. Set up four caddies and scales. Log every day without changing anything else.

Week 2: measure and look. Keep logging. At the end of the week, find the biggest category and the three items that appear most often.

Week 3: act. Pick two fixes for the biggest problem. For example: smaller, more frequent salad orders and a FIFO shelf in the walk-in.

Week 4: check. Compare weeks 3 and 4 with weeks 1 and 2. Keep what worked, try something else for what didn't.

Then keep logging. The habit is what keeps the numbers down.

Where ShiftComplete helps

ShiftComplete doesn't weigh waste or manage stock orders. It helps with the routine that keeps waste down:

• Daily checklists with a waste log line, a FIFO check in the walk-in and a labelling check at close, changing by weekday, each tick named and timestamped, with photo evidence if you want it.
• Temperature logs for every fridge and freezer, with out-of-range readings flagged, so a failing fridge is spotted before it costs you a day's stock.
• Maintenance logs with photos, so the dodgy freezer seal gets fixed.
• The rota, with labour cost shown as you build and day notes for big bookings, so prep and staffing follow the same forecast.

£1.49 per staff member per month, free for 60 days with no card needed.