Do-nut Waste Food: The Food Waste Issue in Restaurants
By: AC
Dunkin’s Wasteful Secret
In a TikTok video gone viral, a Dunkin’ employee revealed a company secret that sparked an insane amount of outrage. And when Dunkin’ noticed the video, the employee ended up getting fired. It appears like the company didn’t like people knowing about what happens behind closed doors.
The video shows a large number of unsold donuts and other pastries that were thrown out at the end of every night shift. The Tiktoker and former Dunkin’ employee made a few other videos showing the garbage bags full of thrown-out donuts, mentioning that on a slow day there could be up to 400 donuts tossed out, in comparison to 200 donuts on a busy day. He also made a response video to a common question “Could you donate [the donuts] to a homeless shelter or something?”, but just as he mentioned in the video, it is a lot more complex than that. First, there are laws in place to protect food service companies from being sued due to liability issues regarding donated foods. Most states restrict grocery and fast food/restaurants from giving food away to prevent anyone from “getting sick” or any other issues. So, while many of the comments suggested donating the donuts, it was not that simple. One way in which Dunkin’ employers could give away donuts was if they distributed them in bags or boxes without the company’s logo. However, without an established system to donate unsold food, it would be the workers’ responsibilities rather than the company’s, when it should be the companies. In response to the negative attention Dunkin’ got from these videos, Dunkin’ developed a legal food donation program that enabled managers, in states where food donations were allowed, to decide whether they wanted to donate the food or not. But still, it doesn’t actually enforce the reduction of food waste. So, with law restrictions limiting the options available to get rid of leftover food, is there an actual solution to this food waste problem in restaurants?
Finding a Solution
One possible solution is to prepare less food than is being purchased. In many fast-food restaurants, to make things go “faster”, they premake many foods to have ready in case people order them. But what happens when the food is sitting out too long, and nobody comes to order it? The restaurant workers throw it out. The greatest solution would be to have food made to order, and that way not only is the food as fresh as it could be but also this could prevent it from being trashed for being out too long.
Another solution and one that is already being implemented by some businesses are to sell their “almost going to waste” food at a lower cost. This enables customers to buy food at restaurants that were about to be thrown out for a lower cost. Reasons for the clearance include orders that were never picked up, weren’t paid for, mistakes made on special orders, etc. Whatever the reason may be, the food is still delicious and edible, and rather than costing the company money by throwing it out, they could at least make something rather than nothing.
Throwing Food Away is Just Like Throwing Out Money
But as NPR’s article suggests, “in spite of the fact that as much as 10 percent of the food a restaurant buys ends up in landfills, hardly anyone in the restaurant industry gives it a second thought”. For many restaurant employees, food waste is not as big of a priority as much as how the food looks and tastes. However, reducing food waste should be part of the job and if companies began to enforce this, they would save a lot of money and resources.
.
A Step in the Right Direction
If anything good came out of the TikTok video gone viral, it was definitely the pressure placed on Dunkin’s to do something about their food waste issue. This video highlighted a big issue in the food industry and hopefully, more businesses will follow in the footsteps of Dunkin’ by creating a donation program and implementing ways to reduce food waste.
Edited by: JG
