Minimising Food Waste: A study of Indian Hospitality Industry

Food is one of the important components of the hospitality industry which is fastest growing sector of world economy. But wastage of food is of utmost concern for hoteliers, as food related activities i.e. food production and service etc. are the second main revenue generating areas for any hotel. It is estimated that simply halving the current amount of food waste by 2050 could reduce the projected amount of food required to feed 9 billion people by 25 percent compared to today's production numbers. Each year, U.S. food waste represents the energy equivalent of 350 million barrels of oil (Cuellar & Webber, 2010), enough to power the whole country for a week. The paper proposes to examine the current food and beverage practices of Indian hospitality industry and finally suggests number of strategies to reduce food wastage at various steps of hotel food cycle.