Hotel Buffets, a Culprit of Food Waste, Get Downsized

As someone who's been involved in the catering industry on both coasts for many years, I can attest to how shameful it is to throw out food, while people around us are starving. Here's a post on how adjusting your buffet can minimize food waste: http://bit.ly/2KXUvxG

FONEE: fear of not eating excessively "...one key contributor to the food-waste problem is a fear of not having enough food, and so hotel personnel and conference organizers both inflate expected head counts to guard against any shortage. At the same time, guests pile their plates high to avoid going back for seconds, and to ensure that they get enough of the dishes they want." God bless America

Having recently stayed in a hotel that offered complimentary breakfast buffet, I would have had no objection to filling out a short questionnaire as part of my online reservation process. Questions could include "I will/will not be eating at the buffet on (date)" and give a sample menu with "I am most likely to eat ___" with, perhaps, a 1-2-3 rankng for portion size. So, for example, someone who likes a lot of fruit, but a smaller serving of eggs and only a single slice of toast would rank those items 1-2-3. It wouldn't be perfect, but the hotel could add a 10-15% buffer amount to the overall amount of food that is prepped & made available, and it would certainly be better than the present system of "Let's act like everyone in the hotel is going to descend on us and eat gargantuan portions." Fact: A lot of people will go out for breakfast and try out legendary local eateries. That's what people do when they are on vacation.

Here's a novel idea. How about making the food taste better.

I hate buffets, especially Sunday brunches. They do waste food. In addition, for the individual they are not good value or healthy. Many believe to justify the cost, you have to throw it down. That's why I like dim sum on Sundays, if I go out. You eat only what you want, and pay only for that. You taste delicious small bites, become lightly satiated, get up from the table and pay a reasonable bill.

I am a meeting planner. I see how much food goes to waste, so I order less. If I have 100 people, I may only order a buffet for 85.

However, maybe they are just referring to the buffets they provide for free. But I'm sure most of the food that is wasted has been paid for by the group sponsoring an event. Hyatt, and other restaurant chains are not losing any money. If they try to reduce the amount of food provided, I certainly hope they reduce the cost to the event sponsor. I sometimes pay over $70 a gallon for coffee. So, no one should be worrying about the Hyatt or any other hotel chain losing money over this food.
If they are trying to be socially conscious and reduce waste, please pass on the savings to the meeting sponsors. If they start using food that can be "re-purposed" - like individual containers of yogurt, then the sponsor should be refunded for the uneaten containers. I do order individual yogurts, they are served sitting in ice, yet I'm told that any uneaten containers are unsafe will be thrown out and that I will not get a refund. Are they thrown out or are they re-purposed and was the hotel double-dipping by charging two groups for the same containers?
I'm all for less waste, but let's not forget about meeting sponsors. Many of us are non-profit groups and seeing food thrown away, means we are seeing our money thrown away.

Ask the meeting planners - they will tell you that much of the food put out on buffets go to waste, they see it all the time. They can also tell you a lot about changing tastes in food. Nobody wants to eat low nutrition high calorie foods, like breakfast pastries. I have learned to pare down the buffet menu, under order and tell the hotel what I am willing to pay per person. It works!

I'm surprised no mention was made about composting. Not everything can be composted; but the fruits, vegetables, and grains certainly can. The City of San Francisco has reduced the amount of food being thrown into landfills drastically as a result. A little creative thinking by the hotel and resort industry could develop similar programs.

Drastically limit the amount of food and rename them to "Half Buffet" of "Smorgas."

All of the food waste should end up at a pig farm instead of the land fill.

"People don't want to be preached to as they are GOING THROUGH THE BREAKFAST BUFFET," Mr. Pearson said.

A porcine visual enough to convince me about buffet dining. Not pretty.

Food is so precious, and many people in the world have one meal a day. We are so lucky in this country. We need to respect food and not take it for granted.

-Eve
http://recipesfantastic.com

As a buffet manager for 10 years, we could have nearly eliminated buffet waste by individually plating small portions of most items. This would work well because most of us just want a little bit of everything, especially when it is presented well. And for the restaurant, not plated was not wasted. Of course, the dishwashers might not be so happy with all those small plates.

I just stayed at a hotel in Barcelona, where young women( from a different culture) helped themselves to piled up plates from the buffet, took photos, and left nearly everything on the plate. I saw the same thing in Switzerland. The young women took a photo of their table, piled with food, with a beautiful mountain backdrop, and then left. The Swiss waiter nearly had a heart attack. So glad Hyatt is looking at ways to reduce food waste.

This article had me thinking about my experiences with breakfast buffets at European hotels. At the end of the breakfast service, most of the stuff is gone. My guess is that these places simply couldn't afford 50% wastage.

In my recent travels, I got to the breakfast room late a couple times. My choices were somewhat limited (got the last chocolate croissant) but there was still an ample selection, that shrunk further by the time I finished my second cappuccino.

I get it: Hyatt doesn't want a late arrived to the buffet to see someone else get the last chocolate croissant. But I'm not in the illusion that my free hotel breakfast is free. Unlike the places that charge anywhere up to 25€, it's already in my bill.

If I were at a Hyatt and arrived late to breakfast only to see the trays overflowing with goodies moments before they were whisked back to the kitchen for disposal, my thought would be, "that's on my bill, isn't it?" Perhaps that's something we all need to think of at the hotel buffet.

Hotels have been putting out polite little signs gently suggesting that guests can opt not to have bed linens changed every day for quite some time now. Apparently that option gets chosen quite a lot and saves hot water and detergent. I don't think guests are offended.

So, why not try little gentle suggestions to people about making sure they don't take more food than they really can eat. Give it a try; I wouldn't be offended.

Hi! I think this is a great idea! As a frequent Hyatt customer I fully support this effort to reduce food waste. I think Hyatt, and all the major chains, should survey their elite and other members on this topic. I suspect most people would agree that so much food is unnecessary. My family always orders off the menu anyway as it provides better portion control and is more relaxing than rushing the buffet line. Perhaps the hotel breakfast buffet should be a thing of the past?

intial finding that guests ate just over half of the food put out....they needed outside consulting to figure this out. christ, you made 10 lbs of bacon and you end up with 6lbs left at the end of the buffet, well duh...make less bacon. or better yet, make it to order.
i know the buffet needs to be or look full, but there are ways around it, Ideo i am sure can help with that.

As someone who actually puts buffets out for a living daily, we do all we can to minimize food waste and cost. Bulk yogurt is the worst of both worlds-no one eats it because they think it's contaminated and it gets thrown out every day by the pound. Even though our strict corporate specs say we have to serve bulk yogurt-we only do so two days a year-when the brand standards inspector comes. The rest of the time we serve single containers which our guests like better and cause far less food waste. Only issue here is the pesky plastic containers. We cook in VERY small batches or to order for our buffet, and replenish often, which necessitates labor, but cuts down on food waste. And many hotels and banquet facilities feed buffet leftovers to staff as a perk. What might get thrown out to you is actually fed to the staff after the event/buffet is over. One hotel I worked at sold all of our (sorted) food waste to a local farmer-best win-win for us and his hogs. As a chef we are very cognizant of food waste for two reasons. One, our bonus (If we get one) is often based on achieving food cost goals, and trust me, I'm getting my bonus. And, two, because not wasting food is the right thing to do for our budgets, our animals, and our planet. Total win win.

I use La Quinta hotels fairly often. I estimate at least a third of their complimentary
breakfast buffet goes into the dumpster. Probably 20 pounds of eggs sausage gravy bread whatever.. Add this to all the trash in Houston that's going to be in the landfill and it's a shame that we are overburdening our planet with our wasteful habits.

I am surprised more of a distinction is not made in this article between a hotel breakfast buffet in the restaurant (often priced pretty extravagantly) and a meal served buffet-style as part of a conference. Having been both a restaurant manager and an event planner, I would not describe the buffet behavior to be the same.

Perhaps because they wanted to get their value from the high price of the restaurant buffet, I often saw people take more food than they could finish. At a conference, you see far fewer people over-filling plates since (1) the meal price is embedded in their conference reg. fee), and (2) they generally take that plate back to a table of strangers or maybe co-workers who might negatively judge them for pigging out.

And when I was a meeting planner, we helped reduce waste by asking hotels to set out slightly smaller plates for buffets, cutting all desserts in half or thirds, and setting desserts in their own area so that people would be more likely to go get them after finishing their meal (when they better knew how much room they had left).

I think imagery might help resolve the problem.

If I were making pancakes at home I'd use just enough mix, milk and eggs to make two small pancakes...three at the very most. I'd put two sausage links in a pan and fry up one, maybe two eggs.

But - if I'm being honest - I admit that on a run through a buffet all those amounts would go up by 50% to 100%.

So, maybe visual prompts (like a menu) to remind diners. Or scale down the size of plates and re-do the order in which items are presented. Eggs first, then veggies, then meat and carbs last.

To reduce waste at buffets, customer behavior and business behavior have to change. The simplest way to change customer behavior is to make a request. Post a sign that says, "Please take what you want and eat what you take."

Customers do not really know how to behave at a buffet. There are not universally accepted manners for behavior at a buffet. Some people who were brought up to only go through a buffet line once will be very wasteful taking much too much since they do not plan to return. Some people will return again and again and eat well beyond the point of being full to the point of becoming sick. Some people will get in line to put back on the buffet the food they did not eat thinking that is the right thing to do; it's not. Teaching customers how to behave at a buffet could be beneficial to everybody.

Businesses can reduce buffet waste by enhancing the display. Ice sculptures and flowers are just for show, but they improve the experience. When the overall experience is pleasant, customers are less wasteful.

Businesses can reduce waste by individually plating items and by reducing portions. That improves sanitation, reduces waste, and shows customers how big an individual portion is. Additional food can be prepared, preserved under cover, not plated and not put on display, so it can be served if needed.

After reading this article, I don't understand why food waste is a problem, other than costing hotels money. How does cutting food waste by cutting back on cheese, yoghurt and bread help the hungry, the environment, or the general economy?

Hopefully smart hospitality people would let Mr. Pearson know that he doesn't get to allow or disallow what customers put on their plate. As Reagan would say, I paid for that plate and I will stuff it (and myself) anyway I want...

Very interesting and needed initiative. Even more proud to be a Hyatt member and a WWF employee! The first step to solve a problem is to understand what's causing it. In Brazil for instance many buffet restaurants have transitioned to the "weight and eat" system where you have a scale by the end of the buffet line and you pay by how much you are eating. Food waste was reduced drastically and the restaurants have now information on how much their customers eat by hour and by the day of the week , planning better how much food needs to be cooked.

Instead of huge baskets, trays and pan of overflowing " food", size down.
Also size down the plates, bowls, cups that guests load up. Post calorie counts near the trough. A person " helping" to serve, restock, maintain order would surely pay for their wages by being a helpful assistant AND subtly discouraging waste, just by their presence. Seriously. I avoid buffets, because I KNOW they cause me to overeat. Others may need a nudge to control themselves. Or, just give up, and go all out. Good luck.

One of the attractions of all-you-can-eat buffets is the variety and visual abundance of different dishes. Take that away, and you are at a drugstore counter.

Feed the rest to the pigs. Easy conversion.