We all know that during the festive season, hotels will be the first few organisation that will offer good promotions to lure in diners to dine at their premise. This is a good income for the hotels but what’s the dark side of it?
In Malaysia, we throw away 1 plane of food daily and it has been said, 60% of food was created from unfinished food. This is enough to feed the whole population of Penang. Unfinished food is the result of people not eating their food finished or hotels having to discard their buffet food every day into the bin. This must change and that is why that is the dark side to all the heavy promotions that have been advertised by the hotels.
Moreover, we are not here to criticise the hotels because we want to make a difference with them. However, to make a difference in each hotel for a better, greener tomorrow, the hotels must first take the action to commit to not throwing away edible surplus food when there are hungry people out there. Once they have committed and instilled this into their management mindset, then they can do the next few steps as below.
1. Put up educational posters.
This is important at times because sometimes we do need to remind diners not to waste food . So putting up some posters that are visible to the diners while they are eating their food will be effective.
2. Have a food waste tracker
Did you know that a tracker gives us a daily, weekly or monthly report for us to measure progress? In this case, the progress we are measuring is to see how much food waste was recorded in the system. It is then from there, we will be able to identify and analyse the data so we are able to come up with a conclusion and findings to help you reduce food waste.
If you will like to have free access to the food waste tracker, click this link: Food Waste Tracker
3. Partner with local food rescue.
There are about 30 food rescue platforms & NGOs in Malaysia. In order for us to feed more people and also help NGOs to cut down on their costing, let's channel the edible surplus food from hotels to NGOs in need or the B40 communities so that we don't have to throw away good food. Together with you, the hotel industry can make a change, stop food waste and feed the people. What are some of the food rescue NGOs that you should know?
1) The Assembly Soup Kitchen 2) Seso 3) Kechara Soup Kitchen 4) Mutiara Food Bank 5) The lost food project
6) Green Hero
to read more about them, click this link : https://www.greenhero.net/post/why-do-we-need-food-rescue-in-malaysia
4. Set up a corner to give our free food
Hotels as well can set up a corner where people are able to take free food from the back of the kitchen or representatives from NGOs collect it from the charity corner. This is one of the simplest ways the hotel can do to give out free food after they have cleared their edible food by packing them into food containers. This activity could be logged into their portfolio as a CSR initiative.
Moreover, if hotels are afraid of getting sue for donating their edible surplus food to feed those in need , pls read this : Malaysian Food Donors Protection Act 2020
Let's stop throwing away good food when there are hungry people out there.
5. A compost bin.
At times, some food may be contaminated by other people's saliva and we don't want to share that with others because it is unhygienic to do so. There are also egg shells, fruit skin, peel vegetables or its scrap that could also be composted. How do compost our food waste made from your kitchen if you don't have space to do soil composting?
Well, a machine can do the work for you. Let's introduce you to Munchbox. A machine that uses electricity efficiently to grind & mix the food waste with microbes so that the microbes can break down the food waste into compost. Once it has been composed in 24 hours, it is then ready to be used for gardening to give nutrients to the soil so the plants can grow healthier.
Now, you have known the 5 ways hotels can do to stop food waste from happening in the 1st place , we hoped that the hotels can make a serious change to their SOP to allow food rescue NGOs to collect their edible surplus buffet food so we can channel it to the poor and not throw away good food. We must acknowledge that throwing away good food is a sinful act. To hotels out there, if you are interested to know more about how Green Hero can help you to stop and reduce food waste so we don't have to create more problems for the environment and society, WA us at : Green Hero
