London restaurants get behind doggy bag campaign in order to reduce food wastage
Waste & recycling news – by Beth Glanvill
5th October 2011
Dozens of London restaurants are taking part in a new campaign being launched today, which urges restaurant goers to ask for a doggy bag at the end of their meal.
The '
Too Good to Waste' campaign provides participating
restaurants with cardboard boxes to be used as
doggy bags promoting the need for less
food wastage. A range of Michelin-starred restaurants, chains and small independent businesses within the industry are involved in the campaign, which is being coordinated by The Sustainable Restaurant Association (SRA). So far 80 London restaurants have signed up to the Too Good to
Waste campaign to help tackle this issue of mass food wastage.
"Restaurant food waste is a huge problem and diners have a role to play in solving it," Mark Linehan, managing director, of SRA said.
Restaurant food wasteThe hospitality industry is throwing away 600,000 tonnes of food waste and is losing on average £724 million a year from food waste, according to WRAP (Waste and Resource Action Programme). The SRA today announced that the average London restaurant wastes up to 21 tonnes of food each year.
According to the SRA, 90 per cent of consumers said they wanted restaurants to do more to address the food waste problem. With this in mind, Too Good to Waste aims to
make asking for a doggy bag in the UK as common ground as it is in the US.
The campaign is also about getting restaurants to box and not bin plate waste, though.
"Food waste in restaurants is a massive problem and doggy bags are one excellent way of cutting waste," celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, who is backing the campaign, said.
Health and safety
Concerns over health and safety, though, means some businesses may not back the campaign for fear customers will sue them if they get ill from the restaurant’s food when they are eating it at home.
With the Too Good to Waste campaign being launched in the capital, the SRA said it hoped to spread awareness of how this waste can be controlled and reduced in the UK.
Along with the doggy bag campaign, the SRA is helping restaurants to reduce the waste that occurs from food preparation. According to an audit issued by the SRA in July and August 2010, prep waste accounts for two thirds of all food waste.
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