Continuing in our discussions about waste this month’s tweet chat topic was food waste. There are many avenues that food waste can occur during an event; with proper planning you can minimize this waste in a variety of resourceful solutions. Let’s see what the participants in this month’s MeetGreenChat had to say about food waste at events.


What is food waste?

Everyone was in agreement that food waste is food that was not eaten caused by a variety of reasons and therefore was thrown away.

Is food waste a priority for your sustainability planning?

All agreed it was a large part of their planning process to prevent as much food waste as possible.

How are you incorporating food waste prevention in your planning?

Education and communication were the top solutions to prevent food waste along with keeping track of registered attendee head count.

What kinds of food waste do your events produce?

This was a complicated question; there is no one answer. The waste varied from condiments to whole meals that were not eaten.

What steps are you taking to reduce food waste at your events?

There are so many solutions to preventing food waste that included training staff on composte & donations, the clean plate challenge, and even rearranging the buffet display to encourage attendees to eat foods that were not as popular.

What are some challenges facing waste reduction in food & beverage?

Some of the challenges mentioned were fluctuating headcount as well as special dietary needs. In some cases the special diet meal that is ordered does not get to the intended recipient. Something to look into on how to ensure this food does not go to waste.

Have you seen any innovative ways food waste has been kept to a minimum at an event?

There are some creative solutions to incorporate when it comes to food waste: donating frozen prepared buffet food in bulk and the clean plate challenge can bring a bit of competition to win a reward.

Do you donate leftover food from your event?

Donating food is hight on everyone’s and you might be surprised on the recipients in some cases. Donations go to local non profit organizations, staff members working the event, and sometimes to cattle and animals.

What challenges have you faced in donating left over food?

Donating food can be a challenge if you are unable to work with the venue or catering service to donate to a local non profit. Other considerations that might effect donations would be storage of the food and possibly transporting the donation to it’s destination.

Is there any difference in your food donation planning between buffet meals and grab & go settings?

Grab & go meals are the easiest solution for donations versus buffet meals will take more planning and preparation to execute.

Thanks to the following for keeping the conversation going post chat!

We were very happy to see all the following participation even after the MeetGreenChat ended! The goal for us with the tweet chat is to learn and share knowledge to help everyone plan more sustainably for their events.

Thank you to all of the participants in the MeetGreenChat and we hope we will see you next month on April 3rd to discuss “Sustainable Event Branding”.