Update professional profiles for restaurant industry with food waste prevention skills

Highlighting skills for food waste prevention will set a specific focus on the importance of working effectively against this problem and save costs

Incorporating food waste prevention contents into vocational training programmes for restaurant industry will help future professionals to adopt correct behaviours in their job places

Students can be Food Waste Prevention Ambassadors during their in-company training, internship or apprenticeship and in their job places, later on

Train trainers and teachers in food waste prevention

Starting with train the trainers programmes is essential to have stronger impact on the problem and durable effects in your organisation. You can adopt the LIFE FOSTER model and toolkit that are based on scientific evidences

You can find your training among multiple LIFE FOSTER solutions – including e-learning programmes on food waste prevention, thematic webinars

Train students to use and consume food responsibly. This will benefit the company where they will work and themselves

Respect for food from production to consumption goes through restaurant professionals – both back and front-of-house. Put emphasis on food as a value and not just as a commodity (love food)

Include food waste prevention in school learning programmes at all grades, to make students aware of the importance of healthy and sustainable food consumption

Train students in measuring ingredients carefully at all steps – from product reception to food preparation and to food serving

The use of food waste monitoring tools, like Food Waste Flow Balance, will make students more aware of how good they are in prevention (reduce waste)

Food waste monitoring will also help control expenditure in food products used in laboratories

Show how to optimise the use of ingredients through recipes that use all edible parts. Be creative and encourage “nose-to-tail” as well as “root-to-leaf eating”⁹ 

Tradition combined with a creative touch and proper technology will help vary ingredients and recipes

The (re-)discovery of more “ancient” food products – e.g. sorghum, millet – can contribute to introduce new sources for proteins

The cleaning and preparation (mise en place) of the ingredients also play a crucial role. Check the quality and the quantity of the products before cooking, use proper tools and technology

Favour your students’ creativeness, show how to use a larger variety of products – including local, seasonal and “ugly” food – and propose recipes that are more traditional

Emphasise the importance of communication in food waste prevention.

This means developing a good communication system between kitchen and room staff, with restaurant suppliers, as well as restaurant guests

You can also promote food waste prevention events to communicate with and raise the awareness of both the VET system and citizens