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by finaard 59 days ago
> Or, maybe, don’t: when people do, they take much more than they eat. Compared with ordering from the menu, all-you-can-eat breakfasts waste more food—up to twice as much, according to one study.

Is that a cultural thing? We have pretty much zero food waste on any buffet as you can easily only take what you actually want to eat. It's just basic good education to be considerate with resources, especially food resources - and I rarely see people taking more than they actually eat, so it's not just an "our family" thing. If you do throw away a lot of foot on a buffet you're just an inconsiderate asshole - and if a restaurant location has significant food waste from that they should just start charging for leftovers.
2 comments
Simulacra 58 days ago
I think it might be partially cultural, American buffets have a lot of leftover food, and people tend to take a lot of food and throw away a lot of food. There's a variety of reasons why it has to be thrown away, but it is.
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bschwindHN 59 days ago
It's paywalled so I didn't read more than the first paragraph. But maybe the waste comes from overestimation of the amount of food to produce? Even if everyone eats a perfect portion for themselves, if you overestimate the total then you'll have food waste if the food can't be preserved.
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finaard 59 days ago
> Even if everyone eats a perfect portion for themselves, if you overestimate the total then you'll have food waste if the food can't be preserved.

That'd be just poor planning on part of the hotel/restaurant. It'd be a valid excuse when starting new, but after a few weeks that should be under control.

If you only do breakfast buffets it's a bit harder - but you monitor the situation, and as breakfast time approaches the end you reduce things you can't store or re-use otherwise. Pretty much any hotel I've been to in the last few years had that kind of items run out without restocking them when we had a late breakfast.

If you also do lunch/dinner buffets you have some more options, and can have some dishes reusing the leftovers. I've also seen that regularly - they had the planned dishes, and a few smaller pots with something they came up with to reuse whatever was left over.

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Miraltar 59 days ago
They make a distinction between plate waste which was served then trashed and total food waste. Plate waste is roughly a third apparently.
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