How much food do fast food throw away at the end of a business day?

Question

I'm about to open an ethnic fast food and would like to know what fraction of the total food cooked/planned for a business day for an ethnic fast food or restaurant, leftovers (clean food that should be thrown away) represent ? or what should this fraction be at max?

Answer 1

This country can reduce the hunger here by 70% by allowing places that feed the poor and homeless the soup kicthens could really benifit from it also....
---My wife works in a Ingles deli,,,they throw dozens of loafs bread the bakery makes in the trash,,every thing they throw away can still be ued for up to almost a week,,,but the Fresh by dates need to be discarded--They have pounds of meals they cooked that day that they throw away..all stores do this,
They will not let workers take it or the poor have it,,cause their sorry butts are not making money...How wastful..

Answer 2

I've worked a couple of fast food places, (national pizza chain, and a national chicken chain), and to be honest, I'm very glad you asked this question.

#1 non-buffet places throw away ALOT.. At the end of a typical day, the pizza place threw away probably about 15+ whole made and cooked pizzas (some of which were ordered, but never picked up or paid for), and around 20-30 raw pizza crusts (no toppings).. Each place is different, but talk about the hunger crisis, many places throw away enough to feed several families... [as a good note, some places will donate left over food to their local food bank charity - ours didn't]... Less chicken was thrown away than pizza (chicken is cooked fresher and more efficient.. whatever isn't cooked is still in the freezer)

#2 buffets.... I have absolutely NO IDEA.. But I'd like to know the answer too... I guess it all depends on how much business they've had... If they've had alot of business, perhaps alot of the food put out was actually eaten... But, for places that have little to no business... I can imagine the waste and loss is outrageous.

Answer 3

I knew a guy that worked at Dunkin Donuts. He threw away hundreds of donuts on a daily basis. I worked at a bakery. We had tons of left over food at the end of the day. Two days a week a local church picked up the food and gave it to a shelter. The other days the employees could take what they wanted and the rest was thrown out. Wasteful...absolutely.

Answer 4

1% loss or "shrinkage" is a goal for most kinds of retail businesses, although some set more realistic expectations.

Of course, its up to you. With higher sales volume, your cost of losses as a ratio to sales would be lower even IF you threw away more than a typical amount of "usable" food.

Many restaurants have a plan to recover some end-of-day leftovers. Saving cooked burger patties to add to chili, for example.

Or consider donating day-old product to a homeless shelter, and you may be able to write off the loss as a charitable contribution

Answer 5

it all depends on you on how much you waste, at my place, an italian restaurant. the only time we waste product is when i make a mastake and get angrey, usally somethign eles is on my mind and this adds to it, but i would throw the dish in the trash,. this happens at lest once every 3 weeks, or if one of my cooks or i are preping and drops something, maybe this happens once every 2 or 3 days, or if somethign gos bad, which has never happened sence i bought a back up gen. all in all every month i may lose about 7 to 10$ of product a month. i have a friend who loses about a grand or more a month due to him cooking for buffet settings. as for your left overs, we cook fresh daily, mostly during the mornings, when we make meatloaf, we usally make one loaf of it, thats about 10 slices, but in the fridge we have a full one left and maybe a half of one, we date it so we know which is the newest and oldest and severd like that, i nkow most ppl would not enjoy this, but this is what restrouts do. ALL. TGI, Tuesdays, Red Lobster.etc...even your fancy 5 stars ones who charge 3.99 for the soad.lol. you just dont make more then what u can sell ever 2 or 3 days, by the time you get to thrusday, all left overs should be almost gone, down to last plate full with very little left, then on firdays you go all out makeing jsut a little more tog et thru you busy day then go all out on sat makeing enough for sundays, most places are closed monday so try tog et rid of your cooked product, then on tuesdays go all out. wes, and thrusday slow down... hope this wasnt all scatted for you to read and hope it helps.

Answer 6

It certainly doesn't promote food culture. I can't think of one single thing that McDonald's or Pizza hut in Sweden sell that reminds of typical Swedish food. The basic food culture in many countries is actually healthy. The fast food chains sell all but healthy food.

Answer 7

I work at Taco Bell and we don't throw anything away. Any food thats left at the end of the night we put on ice and serve the next day!

Answer 8

it depends.what type of food?seafood, meat, poultry? some fastfood chain dopn't cook until requested.you can do the same.that will save you some $$$.or at the peak hours you start cooking waht the majority usually ask for

Answer 9

none they use leftovers for the next day

Answer 10

http://www.organicconsumers.org/Politics/foodwaste081005.cfm