A new report commissioned by the Hospitality Carbon Reduction Forum (HCRF), has found that food waste management costs could be reduced by 30 per cent, and ‘much less food’ would be sent to landfill, if the hospitality and waste management sectors collaborated.

According to the HCRF – a group set up by Carbon Statement (CS) – its 40 members (who represent over 13,000 pubs and restaurants across the UK) spend over £46 million on waste management per year, but around 150,000 tonnes of food waste still goes to landfill.

This is as transportation, bulking up sites and delivery to anaerobic digestion facilities represent the single largest waste cost element for the sector (between 65 and 85 per cent).

As such, earlier this year, CS announced that it had been commissioned by forum members to determine ‘how the sector can reduce the volume of food waste that currently goes to landfill and effectively leverage the increasing number of anaerobic digestion facilities in as cost-effective way as possible’.

This, it hopes, could also help the sector achieve the target of recycling, sending to anaerobic digestion or composting 70 per cent of all food and packaging waste by 2015, as set out in WRAP’s voluntary Hospitality and Food Service Agreement.

Report findings

According to CS, collaborative work could see the industry benefit from ’volume deals’ with energy-from-waste companies by ‘removing landfill charges, reducing backhauling and transportation costs and associated carbon emissions while earning money from generating energy’.

The report has identifiednine potential pilots that could demonstrate the ‘benefits of collaboration’ and new approaches to waste collection and management. It is hoped the findings from these project could help ‘create and implement a linked-up waste strategy that would work for the overall benefit of the Hospitality Forum members and possibly be adopted by other sectors’.

Projects include:

• setting up an AD plant specifically for forum member use;
• setting up an AD plant specifically for forum member use who can then reap revenue from electricity generated;
• using a food waste company to collect all members’ food waste and take it to AD plants (which ‘splits out the waste collection costs from the AD gate fees’; and
• reducing prices of waste management, based on volume of food waste collected from members;

According to CS, owners of AD plants are ‘concerned’ with securing feedstock for the increasing number of AD plants in the UK, and as such, are ‘willing’ to ‘strike a deal’ with members to secure a certain amount of food waste for a determined period of time, in return for a ‘gate fee reduction and index link it to the price of electricity’.

Indeed, CS estimates that members could provide between 15 and 25 per cent of the extra AD capacity coming on stream in the next two years.

Members are now being urged to consider taking part in one of the pilot schemes.

Looking at the findings of the report, Charlesworth added that collaboration between companies on waste collection and efficient backhauling by logistics operators could ‘transform’ the UK’s waste industry.

The report concludes: ‘Getting collaboration to work will require HCRF members to collaborate for mutual benefit and manage their existing contracts carefully. The next phase of this project will seek to work with members to put some pilot schemes together to trial this approach.

‘Encouraging backhauling must be a key objective of the next phase and something that is imperative to drive the efficient collection of separated waste streams. To do this effectively needs collaboration and sharing of best practices and encouragement. This encouragement can come by working closely with distribution partners; industry collaboration can come through working together at the HCRF to share best practices and encouraging best practice. Commercial encouragement is most likely to come from competition distribution rates that include a commitment for waste backhauling services.

‘The distribution companies are very aware that this is an area of competitive advantage and they need to offer this service for the future, but to do this they nee to invest in and adopt best practice.’

CS adds that the success of setting up backhauling schemes with companies that distribute their own products to the sector, such as beer manufacturer Carlsberg, balances on ‘integrating best practice in their distribution operations without adding too much extra overheads’.

‘More sustainable future’

Forum members welcomed the report, with Louise Ellison, Head of Sustainability at shopping centre management company, Hammerson, saying: “As hospitality becomes an increasingly important element of the shopping experience, working with occupiers to identify cost effective, sustainable alternatives to landfill for food waste is a natural priority for us. This report has produced very useful insights into this issue and we welcome the opportunity to continue working with the Hospitality Forum to take this initiative forward.”

Chris George, Head of Energy & Environment from the Whitbread Group added: “The forum’s collaboration and sharing of best practice will ultimately lead the hospitality industry to a more sustainable future with new, innovative ways of working. We expect to benefit from reduced landfill charges and transportation costs, reduced carbon emissions as we start to generate off site energy, and improved environmental impact, as we’ll be doing more for less.”

Charlesworth concluded: “We are very excited by the response we have had from forum members. A change in distribution and pricing brought about by the collaboration of the hospitality industry could lead a wholesale change in the way that companies manage their waste streams. This has the potential to create a ‘linked-up waste strategy’ that would work for the overall benefit of hospitality forum members and possibly be adopted by other sectors.”

Find out more about the Hospitality Carbon Reduction Forum.