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JUN. JUL. 2019 VIII itself. Such as Toast Ale, made with unsold bread by Tristram Stuart, before we knew of Greta, who in 2009 denounced the scandal of edible food thrown out by restaurants and supermarkets. REDUCED COSTS Awareness is the first step for a restaurant to switch to a green approach. Google, in the cafes of its headquarters in Mountain View (serving 200,000 meals per day), has saved 2,720 tons of food in five years... weighing it. Giving value to food means to calculate the order of ingredients better and think of how to reuse them for the next meal. Habits of the poor? Not really, for years a star chef like Pietro Leemann has been designing every recipe to avoid waste. The unused part of the vegetable is used for creams, sauces and pâtés, and, if not edible, is used for compost in the garden outside Milan. Wasting less ingredients means lower costs for both supply and disposal. “We will only be able to halve the waste of food by 2030 if restaurants and bars commit themselves. Each stage of the food supply chain has a responsibility,” Dave Lewis of Champions 12.3 -, “But reducing food waste is not only the right thing to do, it’s commercially viable.” THE ROLE OF THE STAFF LeanPath is an American association that has been providing equipment to measure and track food waste for 15 years and educating chefs on how to use this data. Today it claims to be able to save one kilo of food every 4 seconds with its practices. “Every day, every second the staff prevent waste and are making a difference in the restaurant and for the planet,” - said CEO Andrew Shakman. For many chefs, saving food is an instinct, they have been taught that food is valuable and they are naturally inclined not to waste what they cook. On the website info.leanpath. com you can calculate how much a restaurant can earn from the adoption of sustainable practices. In terms of lower costs and waste. Because sustainability, that’s the big message, is not just a necessity or a way to attract more and more conscious customers. It is also a business opportunity, and at the end is worth it. ______________________________ BOX SUSTAINABLE RESTAURANTS IN 5 STEPS The report Creating a Sustainable Food Future, produced by the World Resources Institute with the World Bank, AN Environment, A Development Programme, CIRAD and INRA, identifies five steps to follow for the success of a waste reduction program. And here they are: – Measure the amount of food wasted to establish priorities. – Involve the staff. – Rethink the practices of inventory and purchasing. – Reduce excessive production. – Re-allocate leftover food. ______________________________ BOX DOGGY BAG OR SPEAKING MENU? WHAT THE CUSTOMER WANTS The last link in the chain of waste of a restaurant is the food leftover by the customer. Bocconi, Green Economy Observatory, and METRO asked customers how to stem the problem. Discovering that 86% of the respondents see the doggy bag as a good solution but a only few then make use of it. The reasons are practical: from the leftovers that are too scarce to unwanted food, to its safe storage before arriving home, and the embarrassment of asking for it. In fact, only 11% say they leave food at the restaurant, but for 68% the greatest responsibility for leftovers lies with restaurateurs. They should address the problem of waste with different solutions, from donation to charities (92%) to the take- away by the customers themselves (86%), donation to animal support organisations (85%), the distribution of food to staff (56%) and, lastly, reuse on other serving occasions (49%). Not only that: the restaurateur should provide a talking menu, or rather with images of the dishes, because one of the causes of the waste is the lack of expectation of the customer. However, a detailed list of ingredients and indications of portion sizes are also considered useful.” ______________________________ BOX 5 SUSTAINABILITY CASE HISTORIES Spectacular : Tested for the first time at the Watt club in Rotterdam, the flooring, designed by Studio Roosegarde, generates energy from the movement of the people who dance, illuminating to the rhythm of the music. Gourmet : Azurmendi, the Basque restaurant was twice the most sustainable of the top 50, in 2014 and 2018. It has planted 800 trees and a forest to compensate for CO2, uses solar panels and thermal energy, is supplied daily depending on the number of customers and leftovers are eaten by the staff, who follow a balanced diet. The 75% of the menu is vegetarian and, in the vineyards, the vegetable garden and the roof garden are also cultivated forgotten species such as the Guernica tomato. Home produce : Three blue ducks, born from the idea of two environmentalist surfers, now has four restaurants in Australia run with the same philosophy, local ingredients, including seasonal produce from the garden. It is part of the Grow it Local project, which networks producers (farms or private gardens) and consumers. It produces compost for agricultural activities. The future : on the outskirts of Milan there will be Vitae, an oncological research centre with an urban vineyard covering the entire building and a hydroponic greenhouse for food production that will supply the restaurant Horto. The project, which will begin at the end of 2019, is by Carlo Ratti Associati, responsible for the Expo supermarket of the future. ______________________________ MAGAZINE