When talking about Zero Food Waste and Thai food, there are many things worth knowing. Both the traditional practices in our food culture, which 'respects' and uses ingredients with appreciation, but we often find that restaurant operators have to waste money on some of the steps, which is a pity.
Today, 'Chef Job - Natthinee Plodthong', a Thai food expert from Makro HoReCa Academy, will talk about managing Zero Food Waste in the Thai way, along with observations and tips that restaurant owners can review and apply to control their business, preventing money from leaking into food waste. We can confirm that it will definitely be beneficial to your restaurant!!
“If we look back, we will find that ancient Thais used ingredients wisely, such as meat, whether it be beef, pork, chicken, etc. We ate and used ingredients from head to tail. Even the internal organs that some ethnic groups do not like to eat, we Thais still eat. Including various vegetables, which if we do not eat, we just peel and throw away. Thais truly respect and appreciate the value of ingredients. And the new generation, starting from Gen Z, including new entrepreneurs, have also started to be aware of food waste and the environment.”
Respect and appreciate the value of Thai ingredients
1. Eat food with respect. Eat meat from all parts, from head to tail, including the internal organs.
2. Know how to preserve food, so that there are no leftovers and that it can be stored for a long time, such as salted meat, salted pork, fermented pork, fermented fish, sausage, pickled vegetables, etc. Take leftover food and process it into other types of food, such as take leftover rice and make it into rice crackers, etc.
“We may not have done Zero Food Waste by using leftover vegetables or meat to make sauces or soups like Westerners do. But in addition to preserving food for a long time, we Thais also have some menus that are the wisdom of the ancients, which came from the need to not waste food and to manage leftover food instead of letting it go to waste.”
1. Gaeng Ho is a wisdom of the northern Thai people in ancient times in dealing with leftover food. It is made by combining leftover curry dishes (the word “Ho” means to combine), adding some ingredients such as glass noodles, bamboo shoots, and adding a little more seasoning. The flavor is enhanced by adding lime leaves and lemongrass, resulting in this type of curry.
2. Gaeng Som is another Thai dish that can manage food waste very well. It can be adapted to use with a variety of ingredients. Even watermelon rinds, cantaloupe rinds, or even melon rinds can be used.
“From my experience with many Thai entrepreneurs, I found that many entrepreneurs do not have a systematic enough management system, which causes the loss of raw materials to be regrettable. Starting from shopping, for example, buying meat or seafood, some shops buy it and put it in a pickup truck and leave it in the hot sun without storing it in a cooler box, which causes the raw materials to lose their freshness or have a shorter shelf life. Or even storing raw materials in refrigerators, many shops put them on top of each other until there is no air circulation or they are pressed together, causing vegetables to rot. This goes all the way to the ingredient preparation process, which may cause waste, such as cutting meat or slicing fish, where too much meat is discarded. That is like a stupid price you have to pay for poor and unsystematic handling of raw materials. We can fix these things by taking care of how the employees work in this area and organizing a work system to prevent waste.”
How to fix
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Set up a work system to maintain the quality and freshness of raw materials, from purchasing, transportation to storage, not allowing them to be of poor quality and go to waste, which will cause money to leak out of your pocket.
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Strictly train employees to have work ethics and take good care of raw materials, both in the storage process and the preparation process for cooking.
“At some point, I would like entrepreneurs to ask themselves what is really necessary. For example, old-fashioned restaurants often decorate the top of the plate, which we will find that 50% of customers do not eat. Some restaurants are even worse, using wilted vegetables, which are leftovers, which makes the image of the restaurant look even worse. Imagine if you had to decorate the top of the plate like this for every dish and serve it like this every day, how much money would you lose in a month? Is it really necessary? Is it the value that customers really want? In reality, are you wasting your own money every day?”
How to fix
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If you really need to decorate the head of the plate, you might want to choose and use less of it. Try to see what is left over and cut it out. Can you find a way to make the head of the plate look good by using fewer vegetables, but in smaller quantities?
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Use appropriately sized plates and beautiful designs that are appropriate for the restaurant's style to promote the food instead of arranging ingredients and leaving them to go to waste.
In addition to taking good care of the ingredients from the beginning to prevent them from being thrown away and wasting money, we can also create value while eliminating food waste. What Chef Job would like to invite entrepreneurs to pay attention to is to try to observe what food waste is left in your shop and think about how it can be used.
example
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Shrimp shells or fish bones that have to be discarded every day can be boiled to make stock for making Tom Yum, which will enhance the flavor of the food and give it a natural taste without the need for seasoning powder. In cases where there may not be a lot of these leftovers each day, you can also freeze them together until you have the right amount and then take them out to use at one time.
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Using leftover shrimp heads or tails can be used to make fried shrimp heads as a snack. In addition to reducing food waste, it can also increase sales.
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A popular menu like “Pineapple Fried Rice”, restaurants like to use pineapple peels to make containers for beauty. But the pulp is used in fried rice only a little bit. It may need to be developed into other menus, such as sweet and sour stir-fry, pineapple yellow curry, pineapple cake, etc., if planned well. Even watermelon peels can be used to cook sour curry. It is a way of ‘rethinking’ to use leftovers at the restaurant as ingredients and also to eliminate food waste.
Click to read Zero Food Waste Program to reduce costs, increase profits, and reveal the secret recipe for reducing food waste.
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What is food waste? Reduce costs, increase profits, you can do it! If you understand Zero Food Waste
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.
We also have a highlight activity, Zero Food Waste Workshop, which is a special workshop that is open for interested people to join for free on November 11, 2020. You can follow the details on Facebook: Makro HoReCa Academy.
Click to read interesting articles from Makro HoReCa Academy.
