Hospitality Zero Project | Results

Hospitality Zero

Hospitality Zero was a hospitality food waste reduction project that we launched as part of the Scottish Government tourism recovery funded Destination Net Zero programme, working in collaboration with Zero Waste Scotland and Scottish Enterprise.

This project aimed at supporting hospitality venues to understand and reduce their food waste. It provided participants with the advice and support needed to achieve this.  

Food waste costs Scottish hospitality outlets an average of £10,000 a year, with the equivalent of one in six meals served ending up straight in the bin. From data gathered during the Hospitality Zero project, it’s estimated that the cost of food waste is likely to be even higher.

Not only is that a huge drain on business resources, but it also contributes significantly to climate change, through greenhouse gas emissions like methane and CO₂.

The project

This project aimed to reduce the environmental and financial impact of food waste by providing free, tailored support to businesses within the Glasgow City region.

This included measuring and monitoring of food waste output and the provision of industrial digital kitchen scales.

An on-site food waste audit was carried out by environmental consultancy firm Mabbett to assess kitchen practices and food related operations.

Through the Hospitality Zero project, businesses were assisted in identifying opportunities for implementing food waste reduction measures, with priority actions outlined in a targeted action plan, tailored to each venue.

Who did what?

Six venues from the Greater Glasgow area were chosen to participate in the project and tasked with measuring and monitoring their food waste over a two-to-four-week period.

Businesses included a rural country pub and restaurant, sports venue with themed dining, late night music venue, restaurant within a country estate and hotel complex, as well as both city centre and suburban neighbourhood restaurants.

Waste was separated into three waste streams – plate waste, preparation waste and spoilage – before being measured, to provide insight into how much food was being wasted and where it was generated.

The Hospitality Zero project has found that food waste costs are higher than previously estimated. When the true cost of waste is taken into consideration (including waste uplift costs and wasted ingredient costs, etc), food waste for some of the venues who took part cost more than £20,000.

The good news is that the Hospitality Zero project identified potential cost savings of £26,307 for participating venues, ranging from approximately £2,000 - £9,000 per venue.

The opportunities identified through the project could prevent up to 13.5 tonnes of food waste – the equivalent of 77 tonnes of CO₂.

Opportunities for savings were mostly centred around portion sizing, continued measuring, monitoring and targeting, and increasing staff awareness.

Feedback from businesses

All venues have stated that they’ll be implementing at least one of the recommendations put forward in their action plan.

Actions include:

• Continued measuring monitoring and starting a spoilage log
• Purchasing an oil filtration unit
• Pre-portioning items
• Reducing size of portions across some menu items
• Increasing staff awareness through training

Don’t just take our word for it, here’s what participants had to say...

Destination Net Zero

Tackling climate change is the biggest long-term challenge facing Scottish tourism now, and in the future, and we want to inspire future generations to say that Scottish tourism led the way and made a difference. 

The Destination Net Zero programme was a key strand of the COVID-19 Tourism Recovery Programme, delivered on behalf of the Scottish Tourism Emergency Response Group (STERG) by Scottish Enterprise (SE), VisitScotland, HIE, SoSE and partners.