Olivia Salvage, creative manager, Agiito, talks about reducing waste in the catering world of tomorrow.
When I first started working in events, I remember being so excited about the array of food on display at the buffets and how delicious it all looked. Even better was when the leftovers were sent to the production office, or the staff catering was, in fact, as good as the attendee dishes.
Pretty quickly though, this excitement turned to somewhat sadness when it clicked that the food left over, thrown away and wasted from our event, was only the waste from one event in a world where millions happen each year. Now, the sight of an overflowing buffet at a hotel with minimal occupancy really frustrates me, to think that little seems to have changed. It’s been eight years since my first buffet as an eventprof, so what improvements has industry made when it comes to catering? What is the dream goal?
I recently stayed at a hotel in the Azores that had forgone the wasteful buffet for a personalised ‘a la carte’ tapas-style breakfast, where you selected multiple smaller portioned dishes using local produce. They took orders one course at a time, to give you the chance to feel full and avoid greedy over-ordering. This gave you the same variety of a buffet, exactly to your taste without the waste, with the added bonus of table service. Build time into your conference agenda that allows for a leisurely breakfast, which could also help to boost in-session motivation.
Other properties have gone for a different angle and adopted calorie-content style labeling to show the carbon emissions from food on a buffet. This is a great way to educate delegates on the impact of their choices and, in due time, statistics will likely show lower-emission choices are more popular. However, this does still leave the issue of wasted and leftover high-emissions food.
Venues can combat this by partnering with local food banks to donate leftovers, hopefully supply and demand will eventually reduce the offerings of menu choices with a large footprint.
In my dream sustainable world, buffets would be a thing of the past and menus would show carbon emissions and environmental impact along with calorie content and dietary information as a standard. It would be a legal requirement for any establishment serving food to donate usable leftovers to charities that help feed the local population.
We have a great opportunity in our industry to showcase feasible solutions to many problems plaguing our modern world, so let’s keep moving and improving, implement these changes and achieve that goal.
