Tackling Food Waste in Hotels
Historically, the hospitality sector has been a significant generator of food waste, and included within this sector are hotels, events, and food service, among others. It is estimated that customer-facing businesses, including foodservice, grocery retail, and others, contribute 18 million tons annually or approximately 20% of the total food wasted in the US.¹ Of the surplus food generated by customer-facing business, only 10% has been donated or recycled previously.¹ The good news is the sector is taking action to reduce food waste. The Hilton Lincoln Center in Dallas has partnered with Denali to tackle food waste at their location and has had notable results. So, let’s talk more about hotels.
Hotels are unique because, within hospitality and in addition to lodging, they overlap with foodservice and events, both of which are big food waste generators. In addition, we add in the “comfort and stay” element where these spaces are designed for guests to have an extended stay, eat meals within the space. In other words, food can be a big part of the hotel experience.
Wasting food has costs associated with it. For a business, the more efficiently food can be managed, the lower the cost impact to the business. This means following the EPA Wasted Food Scale guidance to reduce waste on the front end, upcycle or donate as much as possible, then recycle the rest. ² The other “cost” that is often forgotten is to the environmental one to growing, processing, transporting, and preparing the food only to have it go to landfills. The environmental costs include water use, fuel and energy consumption, packaging, and overall impact to the climate because of these inputs.
For hotels, and the hospitality industry as a whole, there has been increased awareness of these environmental impacts over the past decade, and new resources have been developed to help tackle the issue. An example is “Hotel Kitchen,” a resource kit developed through a partnership between the American Hotels and Lodging Association (AHLA) and World Wildlife Fund (WWF).³ The kit is specific to food waste in hotels, and it provides guidance to the various roles in a hotel environment that can have impact on food waste.
How to take action:
- Establish a program that includes goals and accountability for the various stakeholders.
- Everyone plays an important role in food waste reduction, and coordinating these roles determines the success of a program.
- Measure and report food not used for its intended purpose or being wasted.
- Make sure to track “waste” from all processes, which also might come from separate programs and service providers. Upcycled, donations, recycled, and trash can show opportunities for improvement.
- Use data to improve.
- Use all data from different dispositions – upcycling, donations, and recycling – to comprehensively look at improvement opportunities. Ordering adjustments, menu changes, creative upcycling of uneaten food, and rightsizing can help reduce overall food waste. Trash waste audit data can show where recycling execution needs to improve – and recycling data can also help to drive upstream waste reduction.
If you are a business or manufacturer that would like to learn more about recycling your food byproducts or other organic waste streams, contact Denali for more information. We can help you set up a customized program to fit your service needs, organic waste streams, and provide the best value.
About Denali
Denali is a leading expert and recycler in the US organics recycling industry. In food waste alone, Denali was responsible for managing over 1.7 billion pounds of food waste from retail, foodservice, and industrial food processors in 2023. In recognizing the impact that food waste has on the climate, Denali is committed to working with customers to find innovative, data-driven solutions to reduce waste on the front end. Denali views what others consider “waste” as a valuable resource, manages multiple recycling facilities in the US, and has a sizeable fleet to transport organic wastes to a diverse network of recyclers. As a contributor to the circular economy, Denali closes the loop by producing valuable products from recycled organics, including animal feed, biodiesel, compost, tire lubricants, and mulch.