What Do Restaurants Do With Leftover Food?

In the restaurant industry, plenty of food goes uneaten at the end of each day. But what happens to it? Does it all just get thrown in the trash? Let’s see what happens to it.

First of all, there are several different types of leftovers. There are the raw ingredients. They go uncooked usually because the chefs bought too much food. There are the individual components of dishes like sauces. These are cooked but go unserved. And there are the uneaten leftovers from a customer’s plate.

When it comes to raw ingredients that are still perfectly good to eat, these will usually be picked up by food recovery programs, which make sure it goes to people in need. However, if the food is spoiled or rotten, it is thrown out.

Individual component of dishes are a bit trickier. Food recovery programs do not generally want to accept food that has been cooked and sitting out for a while. Restaurants tend to just throw these foods away if they can’t be delivered to those in need.

In the case of leftover food on a customer’s plate, that is always thrown away; nobody wants to eat someone else’s half- eaten sandwich! And in several cases restaurants will save unused food and reuse it the next day; this is the origin of many restaurant’s “specials.”

Food waste is a huge problem in America. According to a 2012 study, Americans throw away nearly half their food, amounting to $165 billion wasted annually. But it is good to know that at many restaurants, they are making a real effort to make sure that nothing ends up in the trash unless it has to.