Overview of waste in the hospitality and food service sector

Key findings

• The total amount of waste, including food, packaging and other ‘non-food’ waste, produced each year at HaFS outlets is 2.87 million tonnes, of which 46% is recycled, sent to anaerobic digestion (AD) or composted.
   
• Of this, 920,000 tonnes of food is wasted at outlets each year, 75% of which is avoidable and could have been eaten.
   
• 40% of food that is wasted is carbohydrates, including potato, bread, pasta and rice. Reduced wastage in carbohydrates would have a significant impact on the total amount of food being wasted.
   
• The amount of food that is wasted each year in the UK is equivalent to 1.3 billion meals, or one in six of the 8 billion meals served each year.
   
• On average 21% of food waste arises from spoilage; 45% from food preparation and 34% from consumer plates.
   
• 12% of all food waste is recycled.
   
• 1.3 million tonnes of packaging and 0.66 million tonnes of other ‘non-food’ wastes are also discarded, that includes items such as disposable kitchen paper and newspapers.
   
• 62% of packaging and other ‘non-food’ waste is recycled. The highest level of recycling is for glass and cardboard.
   
• 56% of packaging and other ‘non-food’ waste that is thrown away could have been readily recycled. In addition to this a further 130,000 tonnes of food waste is generated from the preparation of ready to serve food items and meals for the HaFS sector, at food manufacturing sites.

Read the report