Food for thought

30. 08. 22

If the global food waste issue were a country, it would be the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases, just behind China and the United States.

Restaurants waste around 9% of their weekly food spend, and when that waste is thrown into landfill, it produces methane – a greenhouse gas that is 25 times more harmful than carbon dioxide. So, tackling food waste is not only good for the planet but good for your profits too.

Thankfully, of all the challenging problems facing humanity, reducing the amount of food we waste is one of the easiest to fix. But that doesn’t necessarily mean we’re good at it.

And while we can all agree that food waste is harmful, the growing problem worsens daily, with governments worldwide doing very little to bring this problem to an end.

The amount of good food thrown in the bin is enough to fill 23 million 40-tonne trucks yearly. Put those trucks together, bumper-to-bumper, and you can circle the earth seven times. That’s the scale of our waste problem.

It’s the elephant in the kitchen

It doesn’t take a genius to deduce that reducing food waste is not just an environmental and physical exercise but an exercise that can save your business money in the long term.

Growing and producing food requires valuable natural resources, generates climate-warming greenhouse gasses, and has a significant ecological footprint. Food waste needlessly puts even more strain on the environment and our resources.

We often forget that we are part of a much larger ecosystem and that our poor health often results in a poor environment. Nowhere is this more apparent than in our relationship with food. We’re becoming increasingly aware that portion distortion and the environmental damage caused by excess food (which equals food waste) are both pressing issues. There is a simple solution – we need to buy and consume less.

Portion control is the procedure that defines the quantity to be utilised in preparing a dish and then serving it. Standard portions also mean consistency in the taste, quality, and amount of food, eventually resulting in customer satisfaction. Controlling portions becomes crucial for any restaurant’s success as it considerably impacts costs.

One of the most beneficial ways the food service industry can employ a sustainable strategy is to use packaging to reduce food waste.

It can be a delicate balance, especially regarding portion sizes, as you may not know what your customers expect from your takeaway. Offering value through more significant portions may be one avenue businesses may wish to go down during challenging times, but this runs the risk of creating unnecessary waste and exacerbating the problem.

Using set packaging sizes to control portion size ensures the most efficient use of food while helping operating costs go a little further. By accurately sizing portions in appropriate packaging, you can also ensure that food remains fresher for longer.

Our brown leakproof range extends shelf life for food that must go through transit before being served to the consumer. It protects against airborne contaminants while ensuring its contents do not escape or become soggy.

Sustainability also means efficiency, making the food service process as simple as possible. By ensuring our packaging is robust, even when full of hot food, we prevent orders from being lost due to damaged packaging. And, by making it easy to pop up and fill each box, we find that our customers can quickly fill a box, seal it, and serve it without dropping food.

Perfect portions

Portion control means getting the order right the first time. The costs will add up quickly if you have to send orders twice because the packaging isn’t up to the job.

A practical approach is to ensure that you always have a variety of pack sizes on hand to account for various portion sizes. A one-size-fits-all approach to portions may allow for clear messaging to consumers, but it is inflexible and can create waste, meaning you will incur unnecessary costs. By offering consumers a choice of carefully controlled portion sizes, you can provide them with more value for money without creating waste, while also gathering feedback on which portion size offer is most valuable to you.

At amipak, our carton boxes continue to prove a highly popular choice. Accessible, sustainable, and robust, they facilitate transit with ease. Meeting consumer sustainability demands that include qualities such as compostable and recyclable, they are also ideal for quick service. They can be provided nested or flat packed, can be made leakproof or grease-proof, maintain freshness, and represent a hygienic choice. To debunk a common misconception about cartons, there is no sacrifice to functionality. No compromise.

Consumers are more switched on to matters of the environment and are shaping their purchase decisions around this. It’s an ideal time for brand owners to use smarter packaging choices to avoid waste generation and connect with today’s consumers, as food waste becomes a hot topic.

Cutting food and packaging waste, making pledges, meeting targets and environmental goals, as well as other corporate social responsibility plans, all continue to significantly contribute to creating a positive reputation around a food service brand. It has also fast become a matter of competitive advantage.

Please speak to our team of experts today to assess, test, and implement a gold-standard sustainable food-grade packaging solution.

Related Articles

Takeaways that don’t cost the Earth

While consumers will always want fresh ingredients and a variety of menu options, something else is increasingly paramount to their…

Good things come in Amipak packages

At the tap of a smartphone, a hot meal can take just 30 minutes to arrive via a box-bagged, traffic-dodging…

Structure and sustainability – how takeout packaging can deliver for millennials’ appetite for change

In many ways, millennials are the current custodians of the Earth. It’s no surprise, then, that they are using their…