How Much Food Do UK Restaurants Waste?

There’s a national drive in the UK to adopt greener practices and become eco-friendlier businesses — and that goes for companies within the food and drink sector, too.

Of course, putting these greener methods into practice can be difficult — so how much are UK restaurants and cafes truly wasting and is it a cause for concern?

Waste Created by RestaurantsDid you know that food firms lose 97p from each meal they serve? Essentially, this is because of food waste that is entirely avoidable. Each year, food waste costs restaurants £682 million and overall, restaurants produce 915,400 tonnes of waste — which includes 199,100 tonnes of foodwaste.

Almost a £1 loss on every meal can significantly impact on your total profits. Take a pub restaurant for example; according to data from How To Run A Pub, the average spend on a three-course pub meal is £14.48. Six percent of this amount (97p) is immediately stripped from this total to account for avoidable food waste, before overheads…