It cannot be denied that the buffet restaurant business is the type of restaurant that creates the most food waste compared to all types of restaurants. This is because of the concept of the restaurant where customers can choose to eat without limits (All you can eat) and one of the important selling points of buffet restaurants is the presentation of a variety of menus and ingredients. The more diverse the menu and the more expensive the ingredients, the more they are a magnet to attract customers to use the service.
And normally the cost of raw materials (Cost of goods sold) of general restaurants will be around 30-35% of sales, while buffet restaurants will be around 40-50%. This is because the amount of food that customers eat in buffet restaurants is on average higher than in general restaurants, because customers will immediately feel that it is not worth it if they eat the same amount as they would normally.
Food waste normally occurs from many causes, starting from the process of receiving ingredients, cutting, cooking, to plating. However, buffet restaurants have a higher chance of food waste than general restaurants from cooking more food than customers need (over prepared), which results in food having to be discarded. In the case of buffet restaurants that allow customers to choose and serve themselves (self-service), such as restaurants in general hotels or shabu or pork barbecue restaurants that allow customers to come and get their own food, including customers having leftover food on their plates (left consumed) from taking more than is appropriate.
In the past, you probably didn't care much. It didn't matter how much customers had leftover or if customers didn't choose to take food after cooking, because the shop still sold well and the profit was as expected. But after the COVID crisis, the shop's sales started to decrease, but the cost remained the same. If you still manage your ingredients in the same way, there's a chance that your costs will be higher than your income, causing a loss.
Reducing Food Waste in buffet restaurants is the first thing that restaurant owners should do during this time because we have no idea how long it will take for the economy to return to normal. Here are 4 simple steps that we can apply to our restaurants to reduce Food Waste and increase profits for our buffet restaurants.
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Separation and recording of food waste
The first step to reducing food waste is to start recording all lost ingredients in the store. Food waste in a store usually occurs from 2 main stages: before the food reaches the customer and after the customer has finished eating.
For waste before the food reaches the customer, it may be caused from inefficient cutting processes, improper storage of ingredients, to cooking processes that exceed customer needs. We should separate the waste for each type of material or group and weigh all of them so that you will know which type of material the waste is from and how much it is generated in which step. Because when you don't know which step the waste is generated in, you will never be able to plan to reduce the waste.
In addition to recording the amount of ingredients lost before reaching the customer, don't forget to record the amount of food left over after the customer eats , because this will let you know what proportion of the total waste is caused by unfinished food.
The benefit of recording the amount of waste in each raw material and each process is to be able to indicate what the results are after adjusting the process to reduce waste.
2. Create team participation
Reducing or preventing food waste effectively requires a lot of participation from both back-office and front-office employees. This is not just a short-term plan because reducing waste cannot be accomplished in a short period of time and if there is no continuous control and monitoring, waste may increase all the time.
Because when the store employees see that waste is a normal occurrence in the store and it is not the store employees’ responsibility to control it, there is no way the store will reduce food waste.
Therefore, creating awareness of food waste as a culture in the store is very important because the employees in the store are the ones who are with the raw materials all the time. If the employees are educated about the importance of reducing waste and understand the same direction and goals, including the benefits that they will receive, then reducing food waste will be most effective.
The most important thing is to be clear with the team that collecting waste data is not to find fault or indicate that employees are inefficient, but to measure the current situation to find the cause and set goals to reduce waste in the future. Otherwise, there may be resistance and uncooperativeness from employees.
And when this becomes the culture of the store, new employees will not feel that it is something beyond their duties, but rather a routine task that we must do every day.
3. Adjust service formats
Even if the restaurant is a buffet service where customers can eat as much as they want, we can adjust some of the service formats to reduce the chances of food waste without affecting the service or customer experience. For example, if the restaurant is a self-service service where the restaurant has finished cooking and the customers have to choose their own food, there will be a greater chance of food waste than a full-service restaurant where customers order food and the restaurant cooks dish by dish (Cook to order). This is because you have to finish cooking the food and wait for the customers to choose, instead of waiting for the customers to order and then the restaurant cooks one dish at a time.
Some service formats have been adjusted from Self Service where the food is cooked and customers come to choose. Customers can choose a menu and the restaurant will cook it one dish at a time (Cook to order) and then serve it to the customer's table. Although this method may increase labor costs, we can only choose menus with high raw material costs or those that are likely to spoil easily, such as seafood. In addition, the benefit of cooking food dish by dish also allows customers to receive freshly cooked food, similar to eating a la carte.
Using smaller plates also helps reduce food waste because customers usually take more food than they need, which means they may not finish it. Using smaller plates will encourage customers to choose their favorite food first and then come back to get more if they want to eat more.
4. New menu format adjustment
One of the most effective ways to reduce waste is to reformulate the menu . After the restaurant records the food waste for each ingredient and each step, the restaurant will know which process or menu the waste occurred in. Sometimes, even if we change the food preparation process or cooking method, there will still be a lot of waste.
This may be because the menu format is difficult to control the quality, which risks lowering the quality, such as fried menus that if left for a while, the food will lose its crispiness, or serving fresh seafood ingredients such as river shrimp or fresh salmon that if stored for more than 2-3 days, the quality of the ingredients will immediately change. No matter how much the restaurant pays attention to every step, there is always a chance of waste.
Changing the menu format completely, such as changing from fried to stir-fried, or changing from serving fresh ingredients to cooked dishes, may be a better option, but it must not make customers feel that there are fewer options or that they are not as good as before, because this will immediately affect the customer's feelings.
In addition, creating new menus from leftover ingredients from cutting is another way to reduce waste without increasing the cost of ingredients, such as using salmon heads to make fish heads boiled in soy sauce or using salmon skin in salads to make crispy fried salmon skin salad.
And here are 4 steps that buffet restaurants can use to reduce food waste in their restaurants and increase profits for their business.
You can follow the Zero Food Waste Program to reduce costs, increase profits, and reveal the secret recipe for reducing food waste via Facebook: Makro Horeca Academy and website.
To increase know-how, increase ideas for restaurant operators to develop their business to be strong and able to 'survive' in the current situation and learn how to reduce food waste which will help reduce costs and create more profit with online content about food waste and methods of managing and reducing food waste.
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