The irresistible smell of a hamburger.

Red fruits: delicious and rich in antioxidants.

How would your customers react if one day you decided to serve only food about to expire to fight food waste? A Swedish restaurant, the SPILL in Malmö, carried out this experiment and business seems to be booming.

The menu is planned daily, based on the availability of raw materials. This food would otherwise be unsold and, consequently, would end up in waste bin.

Of course, the experiment is part of a particular framework, as the city of Malmö also boasts the first zero-emission district in Europe. Here, sustainability is a serious matter, as witnessed by the courageous entrepreneurial choice of chef Erik Andersson. This makes even more sense, given that a substantial part of the food produced goes to waste when in reality it would still be edible, especially and above all in public establishments. At the top of the black list of food that ends up in the trashcan daily, are fruit, vegetables, bread and dairy products.

Beyond environmental sensitivity, the need to reduce waste is common to all restaurateurs. So what should we do? The recipes are different, starting with the kitchen of food recycling, hailed by starred chefs. Soups and creamed vegetables, for example, are a classic for recycling vegetables and a seasonal dish much appreciated by health-conscious people. Left over bottled wine can be used to blend risottos, and so on.

A bit like home, the secret lies in adopting organizational and improvisational skills: maintaining high standards of hygiene and handling delicate raw materials. Optimized management and creativity, in short, must go hand in hand. Planning food purchase, processing and careful storage are the fundamental aspects to avoid waste. It is also very important to communicate one’s own sustainable choices.

Perhaps, the customers could be involved the in a more conscious approach to food consumption. For example,encouraging the use of the so-called doggy bag. Those who think that this is not ‘chic’ could easily change their mind when faced with a good example.

Have you already read the article about the museum of disgusting foods?