Category Archives: Restaurant

No Food For You!

Talk about a culture clash. A Japanese chef in Sydney is taking a firm stance on plate waste. As in: don’t clean your plate, don’t come back. Those who leave food behind at chef Yukako Ichikawa’s restaruant, Wafu, are informally banned from returning. As she put it, “(When they try to return), if I remember their face, […]

June 1, 2010 | Posted in Restaurant | Comments closed

Foxy Take-home Box

I love this Red Robin to-go box. Only one problem–it’s not a take-home box. Huh?! The faux picnic basket is instead Red Robin’s centerpiece/vessel for ads. Not according to my mother-in-law (bless her heart), who decided it would make the perfect doggie bag and took some leftovers home in the paper box. Upon further examination, […]

May 26, 2010 | Also posted in Personal | Comments closed

Pay-what-you-can Panera

Panera Bread has just started a very interesting experiment: a community outreach restaurant where customers pay what they can afford. The sign at the entrance says it all:  “Take what you need, leave your fair share.” Panera, called St. Louis Bread Company in its hometown, opened St. Louis Bread Company Cares in Clayton, Missouri on […]

May 19, 2010 | Posted in Restaurant | Comments closed

Double Dare

Recently, KFC announced that they’re going to donate a bunch of “unneeded” rolls and funds to food banks across the U.S. These rolls are surplus because their new sandwich, the Double Down, substitutes chicken for bread. Now this is just silly. There’s no surplus of rolls. The company has known it would be introducing this […]

April 29, 2010 | Also posted in Food Recovery | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) thinks that reducing our food waste by 25 percent is a reasonable goal. I’d shoot a little higher, but, that’s just me. — — School lunch reform hits New Haven and food hits the bin. Of course, it’s more complex than that. An engrossing read. — — Why can’t composting and crafting […]

March 19, 2010 | Also posted in Composting, Friday Buffet, International, School | Comments closed

Doggie Bag Declined

I tweeted about this tale of waste over the weekend, but it’s just too ridiculous not to cover here, too. The Consumerist tells the story of a woman (Jennifer) and her boyfriend out to eat at the somewhat upscale McCormick and Schmick’s chain. It’s happy hour, so their beers and burgers come at a discount. […]

March 15, 2010 | Posted in Restaurant | Comments closed

Ketchup Concerns

Since I’ve been in Mississippi recently, I’ve been eating fried food a bit more than I usually do (read: almost never). What good timing then that Heinz has decided to update how they serve fried food best friend, ketchup. The world’s leading ketchup maker is replacing its old packets with Heinz’s Dip & Squeeze packets, […]

February 8, 2010 | Posted in Restaurant | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

Give out of date food to the homeless, UK Environment Secretary Hilary Benn told supermarkets. He singled out food redistribution charity FareShare as part of the solution. There’s only one problem–FareShare doesn’t really collect surplus food. They receive it. The next Briton to start a nationwide food recovery group will be the first. — — Wasting […]

January 22, 2010 | Also posted in Food Recovery, Friday Buffet, International | Comments closed

Your Thoughts, Please

Next week, I’m headed to the World Association of Chefs Societies‘ 2010 get together in Santiago, Chile. While there, I’ll be giving a talk on restaurant food waste. I’m now putting together my slides and wanted to pose a question in the hope of making my presentation as inclusive as can be: What ways do you see […]

January 20, 2010 | Also posted in Personal | Comments closed

Cuppa Waste

Wasted coffee. This topic could be its own book. In the meantime, it’s a post: The food waste experts at LeanPath have provided some helpful and potentially money-saving hints on both reducing the amount of excess coffee and what to do with the inevitable excess. While the tips are aimed at restaurants and institutional settings, mostly, […]

January 13, 2010 | Also posted in Repurposing | Comments closed