The Initiative is a not-for-profit organization that believes in equality through design. Together, we can move the needle, towards a world that believes in living in harmony with beings that we often ignore. Support from our donors allows The Initiative™ to work towards design solutions to navigate human and stray animal interaction. While we are actively involved in, research, analysis, documentation, photo, videography and design as a means to understand street animal behavior, we need your help to make our efforts go further, as we try to improve shared urban environments, by prototyping and manufacturing urban inserts that improve the city for both animals and humans.
Decadent Supper Extras
Restaurants also need to have more complete information about various platforms for effective disposal of surplus food and recycling options and in particular about the processes.
As per this study, the hospitality sector is not keen on government interference to reduce avoidable food waste and would rather solve the issue at their level and through their associations.
Indian customers in this age are usually not shy in asking the staff to parcel the leftover food so a good amount is usually taken away by the guest.
Some restaurateurs spoke highly of “Feeding India” “Robin Hood Army” who is very “ prompt in collecting surplus food from restaurants and distributing it through their shelter homes.
Another restaurant has invested in a “public fridge” which has been mounted a few feet “ away from the restaurant. Destitutes can pick up the surplus food from this fridge.
One restaurant owner narrated that in the previous year a very complicated matter came up as the donees claimed that they felt sick after consuming the food, demanding massive compensation.
A good proportion of Indian consumers especially males have a tendency to fill their plates at buffets and cannot finish most of the food. A mid-range restaurant exhibited a sign put up at two strategic places at the buffet table “You are welcome to come back as many times as you want.” In total, 74 percent of the restaurants use 32 cm plates while the remaining use 27 cm plates. Larger plates might contribute to people serving and consuming more food due to visual illusions that lead to biased perceptions of how much food is served or consumed (Van Ittersum and Wansink, 2012).
A recent study conducted by Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata, revealed that only 10 percent of foods get cold storage facility in India. This factor, accompanied by inappropriate supply chain management, as per the study, has resulted in India becoming a significant contributor toward food wastage both at pre- and post-harvest waste in cereals, pulses, fruits and vegetables (The Pioneer, June 30, 2016).
Fine-dining restaurants are the ones more receptive to participating and also sensitive toward importance of waste management. Three of the fine-dining restaurants take efforts to ensure that the kitchen staff chops vegetables correctly, does not overtrim meat or add excessive ingredients thereby mitigating food waste.
In certain cases, if food chicken, fish or vegetables are in excess in the early stages of cooking, these are refrigerated and are reused. Vegetables rot faster and are disposed of whereas meat can be refrigerated.
Majority of the restaurants have a clear policy to distribute the surplus food among their staff. Some of the restaurant managers enforce the policy that staff members must consume the excess food in the premises and cannot take it home. In the event of desserts and sweetmeats left over in large quantities, five of the restaurants send these to an orphanage. Some of the restaurants donate the food to the nearby temples for distribution among the needy. Out of the 63 restaurants surveyed, only 2 had a tie-up with a food bank to donate the leftovers. Some of the luxury restaurants have a have tie-ups with NGOs to distribute the leftovers while some prefer not to do so due to bad experiences in the past.
While some of the restaurants covered in the study are adopting some kind of waste-reduction practices, almost all of them expressed a desire to do it in a better way and most of the participants were receptive to better waste management.
The wastage culture has been bad news for decades in India which produces some of the world’s best rice, grains, tea and spices, courtesy the country’s 46 soil varieties. In 2019-20, total food grain production was estimated at 292 million tonnes, while as per estimates, 225-230 MT is needed to feed its population in a year. Still, the country is struggling to feed its own.
Repurposing food waste from restaurants to feed stray animals that go to sleep hungry every night.
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