We recognise that food waste is not only a moral issue, but a key contributor to climate change too. Wasting food is a waste of the energy to grow, harvest, process and cook and food waste in landfill can cause methane emissions, a potent greenhouse gas. Working in partnership with our clients, we aim to halve food waste across the Group by 2030.
Delivering on our sustainability strategy starts by understanding why food is being wasted. Each year, measurement technology is introduced in new units as we continue the global roll out of our strategy helping our kitchen teams measure, monitor and reduce food waste. We use different systems in different markets, all of which are driving down food waste and improving our oversight.
Waste Not 2.0 is a state-of the art tablet-based food waste tracking programme, designed by our Compass Group USA chefs. It efficiently enables kitchen teams to identify waste-reduction opportunities that go beyond typical trim, bones, core, and peel waste. The digital platform offers managers with intuitive tools to promptly analyse data, measure and report the carbon impact of kitchen waste to develop long-lasting solutions to fight against food waste. In the USA, the Group’s largest market globally, the Waste Not 2.0 tool has been instrumental in reducing food waste by up to 45% in several pilot programmes.
Following this success, Compass Group USA has committed to rolling out the system in thousands of kitchens throughout the US, while also making the tool available to our culinary teams in other markets worldwide. We’ve already conducted several pilots in other countries, namely Italy, Austria, Portugal, and UAE. In total, we have deployed Waste Not to more than 2,000 sites worldwide and also have a large-scale launch underway in Canada.
“I always knew we should and could be tracking waste but was overwhelmed at how to do it. This programme made it so easy!”
Snap Inc.’s General Manager John Leone.
Compass Group USA introduced Stop Food Waste Day as an International Day of Action, raising awareness of the social and environmental impacts of food waste.
Our commitment to tackling food waste is aligned to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development goal #12.5 as we work to halve food waste by 2030, and stretches from working with suppliers, implementing sustainable practices in our operations and raising the public profile of the issue.
In 2022, we ran a global social media campaign which achieved 33,578,390 impressions from clients, suppliers, partners and the general public worldwide. We also created a digital cookbook with the support of 45 chefs from 33 countries which has been read over 7,000 times!
Compass Group Colombia’s Gastronomic consultant, Chef Tianna won a client-organised sustainability cooking contest. Chef Tianna celebrates locally produced and locally sourced ingredients in her Fried Chickpea Pie with Santander Aji.
The innovative vegetarian recipe, inspired by local tradition, uses food ingredients that would have otherwise gone to waste, including stems, skins and roots of vegetables. In fact, 95% of the ingredients used in the recipe give a second life to ingredients that most commonly go to waste in kitchens.
Compass Group Australia and Foodbuy Australia have proudly become signatories to the Australian Food Waste Pact. This voluntary agreement brings organisations together to create and share solutions and strategies dedicated to food waste prevention.
As a leading procurement and supply chain provider to the Australian food and hospital industry, Compass Group’s commitment is able to drives sustainable change at scale. The signatories pledge to cut the 7.6 million tonnes of food waste produced in Australia in half by 2030, a commitment aligned with our global target to halve food waste across the Group by 2030.
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