Don't leave leftovers

Food waste is a global problem. In the US alone, an estimated 20 bn meals’ worth of food is wasted each year, with over 85% ending up in landfills. Interestingly, while taking home leftovers from restaurants seems like an easy idea, not many people do that.

So, why is it so difficult to keep perfectly good food out of the trash? Are there ways to fix this? Tune in to the Gastropod episode, From Trash to Treasure: Why’s It So Hard to Save Restaurant Leftovers? Hosts Cynthia Graber and Nicola Twilley explore innovative solutions.

Among other things, they discuss TGIF’s ‘Right Portion, Right Price’ initiative, which lets customers pay for only what they eat, and Rutgers University ditching food trays, which saved the uni $300,000 in food costs and reduced waste by up to 22%.

The podcast also highlights the app ‘Too Good to Go‘, where restaurants sell ‘surprise bags‘ of excess food, preventing over 350 mn meals from being wasted. There’s still much to do. But these ideas prove we can turn food waste into opportunity.