Zero waste in practice

What is zero waste and why does it resonate among restaurateurs, even if it seems economically unprofitable?

Zero waste, or zero basket, is not just a trend that allows you to reduce waste in production, in a bar or in the kitchen, it is a trend that has become global over the past few years. Here we can talk not just about preserving food, but rather about how to cause less damage to the planet. Zero waste is built around recycling and secondary production from waste - paper, plastic, aluminum, and its global goal is to reduce the amount of waste in general.

Striving for zero waste seems like a difficult and costly initiative: you need to purchase expensive equipment, find responsible eco-suppliers and train your team. But, on the other hand, there are expenses for perishable products that were not used because they spoiled, for garbage removal - all these expenses should ideally disappear when zero waste becomes a clearly developed system.

In world practice, there are many extreme stories about a radical change in lifestyle from the usual in our understanding of consumption - up to the abandonment of familiar gadgets. One of the most famous examples is the ideologist of the trend, Bea Johnson, who completely rebuilt her family’s lifestyle to zero waste: they sort garbage, don’t buy paper towels, buy clothes in second-hand stores, use a minimum of gadgets and everything that is most necessary. Bea wrote a book about this, and claims that her family began to spend 40% less, and that they feel quite happy people.

© Greenpeace

Zero waste concept in the restaurant business

In the restaurant business, the concept of zero waste is still more common in bars: there are a number of initiatives for collective collection of waste for recycling from several establishments, recycling of some products, as well as a trend towards zero-waste production. Some even install composters and share fertilizer with their food suppliers. In some establishments, the bar and the kitchen try to work together to reduce food consumption, and, for example, zest from the kitchen goes to the bar as a garnish, and berry dust goes to the confectioners to decorate the preparation of desserts. Some use dehydrated fruit as a compliment to guests or sell it at the checkout counter as souvenir snacks.

Companies are increasingly moving away from single-use plastic packaging and straws. In many establishments you can see all the variety of creative ideas on this topic: bamboo tubes, metal, glass, paper, pasta, but not all guests willingly accept these ideas. Many establishments simply serve all drinks without straws at all, which is also logical: the taste of the drink sometimes takes on the taste of a straw.

Coffee shops offer discounts on drinks for guests with their own glasses : nature suffers not only from plastic - paper production harms it no less, and disposable cups combine both: cardboard is covered with a waterproof polymer coating, so many, if possible, refuse them or replaced with more environmentally friendly versions.

For many countries, the difficulty in introducing zero waste into everyday life is associated with bureaucratic “stops”: the work of waste processing plants is regulated as normal production, but they cannot actually be stopped, otherwise the equipment will become unusable - the plant must operate 24/7. It is difficult to install bins for separate waste, organize waste collection for recycling in the city center, etc. But the industry’s opinion on this matter is unanimous: you need to consciously use resources and, in your desire to change something, always start with yourself.

What do HoReCa professionals say?

Nikita Sergeev, MONIN

Zero waste in a bar can be regarded more as low waste, that is, less garbage in the trash can: all the waste that goes into the trash can can be used in one way or another and achieve an interesting result. We are talking about crusts, cakes, products that have been subjected to bacterial contamination - there are several areas of work with them. The first is drying ovens, which can dry the peel into chips, which can be turned into powder and used as a garnish, krasty or toppings for dessert. The second is the use of scrubs and fermentation as an additional format. If the product has been slightly contaminated, has become wilted or has turned sour, then with the use of sugars, acids and vinegars this can be turned into some interesting tincture or the same scrub, which can be used as an alternative to acids in drinks. However, everything must be commensurate with the amount of food and drinks served.

There are also several solutions for working with glass and tetrapack. Tetrapacks, of course, can be used as boxes for seedlings and grow your own microgreens in a bar. This is difficult to put into practice if we are talking about a large network, but, as they say, if you want to change the world, start with yourself. Glass can be recycled, as a number of St. Petersburg bars have done, or it can be included in the secondary recycling cycle in a bar setting, for example, to make decor out of bottles. At Belinsky, we froze water in 0.33 bottles into wild ice and used it to serve drinks to go.

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Georgy Troyan, “Northerners”

We dehydrate everything, dry it, cook broths, use peelings, for example, we put potato peelings in milk for mashed potatoes - they give it taste, and we burn other peelings in the oven and sprinkle smoked butter with this ash - this topping, by the way, has already become famous. In short, we have zero waste - it is an integral part of the kitchen, and as a bonus, there is less waste.

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Maria Railyan, West4 roasters

Zero waste is a trend, and everyone is trying to follow it to one degree or another. For example, there is such an initiative - My cup, please, this is a movement to abandon disposable cups in favor of reusable alternatives. It involves coffee shops that give their guests discounts, bonuses and even free drinks for using a reusable cup. We offer a discount on a drink if a guest brings their own mug , sell biodegradable capsules and plan to make our own line of reusable glasses.

Some coffee shops also buy eco-friendly glassware - without polymer, which prevents the cups from decomposing, and completely abandon plastic straws and lids. But any movement towards environmental friendliness is more about consciousness than about business; it is costly and leads to higher prices for the product. And from the point of view of motivation, the task is also not an easy one: to sort waste in production, you need to cooperate with a special company, place separate containers and make sure that the staff follows this. However, the industry is gradually moving in this direction.

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Valeria Shulyumova, Tilda food&bar

We replaced plastic straws with straws, metal, glass, and bamboo. We have replaced storage equipment with boxes made of biodegradable materials, we do not use disposable containers - only reusable ones, this is even profitable. We will soon be giving out coffee to go in reusable cups, and we also want to organize garbage collection, following the example of St. Petersburg projects, this is quite difficult to arrange in the center of Moscow, but we would really like this - put separate containers, sort the garbage throughout the center and take it to a waste recycling facility factory. This is also in the near future, if everything works out.

Everyday foreign practices

Sweden has a number of online projects for selling perishable food and leftovers, for example the Too good to go app connects restaurants wanting to sell leftovers with shoppers wanting to buy more affordable food at the end of the day. Another Swedish startup on this topic was launched last year called Karma . And the English app Olio allows people who buy too much to give away their excess food to others for free.

Another interesting project from Sweden - sips opp maten ("finish your food") - affects suppliers: the campaign encourages them to indicate on the packaging not only the date by which it is recommended to consume the product, but also the date by which the product is not yet spoiled.

Restaurants are opening all over the world - often gourmet restaurants - that prepare dishes from leftovers: Finnish Loop, American WastEd, English Real Junkfood Project and others. Not so long ago, Russian restaurateurs began to test this format, but so far they have not met with understanding from visitors.